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SubjectRe: "obsolete" versus "deprecated", and a new config option?
Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> a couple random thoughts on the notion of obsolescence and
> deprecation.

[...horrible example deleted...]

> so is that ioctl obsolete or deprecated? those aren't the same
> things, a good distinction being drawn here by someone discussing
> devfs:
>
> http://kerneltrap.org/node/1893
>
> "Devfs is deprecated. This means it's still available but you should
> consider moving to other options when available. Obsolete means it
> shouldn't be used. Some 2.6 docs have confused these two terms WRT
> devfs."
>
> yes, and that confusion continues to this day, when a single feature
> is described as both deprecated and obsolete. not good. (also, i'm
> guessing that anything that's "obsolete" might deserve a default of
> "n" rather than "y", but that's just me. :-)

Agree on that. I would hope "obsolete" means there's a newer way which
should provide the functionality (** help should say where that is **)
while depreciated should mean "we decided this was a bad solution" or
something like that.
>
> in any event, what about introducing a new config variable,
> OBSOLETE, under "Code maturity level options"? this would seem to be
> a quick and dirty way to prune anything that is *supposed* to be
> obsolete from the build, to make sure you're not picking up dead code
> by accident.

If you're doing that, why not four variables, for incomplete,
experimental, obsolete and depreciated? Unfortunately doing any more
detailed nomenclature would be a LOT of work!
>
> i think it would be useful to be able to make that kind of
> distinction since, as the devfs writer pointed out above, the point of
> labelling something "obsolete" is not to *discourage* someone from
> using a feature, it's to imply that they *shouldn't* be using that
> feature. period. which suggests there should be an easy, one-step
> way to enforce that absolutely in a build.
>
> thoughts?
>
I think it's a good idea, but doing it right may be more work than the
benefit justifies.


--
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
CTO TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with small computers since 1979
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