Phobos - breaking existing code

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 11/28/2014 3:53 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> I think we may have been a little trigger-happy in implementing the
> deprecation cycle. While technically the deprecation cycle lasts 2 years
> (?), I think it's probably a good idea to keep deprecated symbols around
> for far longer than that. You never know when somebody decides to dust
> off some 5-y.o. code that references an obscure Phobos symbol that has
> since been deleted after a full deprecation cycle.

And, when they are removed for good, there needs to be section in the phobos 
module documentation that gives a list of gone names and corresponding new 
names. If the hapless coder greps for "fnmatch", there are no hits in Phobos.

I don't so much mind the name change as I mind not knowing "how do I fix it?". 
Even if I find a new name, such as "fnmatch" seems to have been replaced with 
"globMatch", I'm not so sure it has the same behavior.

In not one of the cases of changed Phobos names was corrective action presented. 
(The spell checker suggested replacement names, but was always wrong.)

In most of the cases where the language changed, the compiler produced correct 
corrective action advice.