Ghosting a language feature

Andrei Alexandrescu SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org
Mon Sep 21 01:09:09 UTC 2020


"Ghosting" is a current age term for the notion of ceasing all contact 
with someone.

I propose we define and use "ghosting" for language and library 
features. It would be a distinct term from "deprecation".

Ghosting would go like this:

* We develop a good definition for the term.

* We add a glossary entry with the definition to the website.

* Once a feature is ghosted, the following happens:

- All documentation and examples of the feature get moved to a distinct 
portion of the website. It would feature its own URL base (maybe its own 
domain or subdomain), a distinct, somewhat unpleasant styling, and would 
use as heading a non-equivocal warning that the feature has been ghosted 
and other feature(s) should be used instead.

- The links to the ghosted feature from normal code will be minimal and 
marginalized (gray text, small font, etc) and accompanied by a 
"ghosted!" warning. We could brand this with some special font, a ghost 
icon, etc so people are constantly queued they are exploring a part of 
the language not intended for new code.

- All bugs related to the feature will be closed as "resolved wontfix".

- The feature will keep on working as is, but new compiler and library 
code will not use it.



More information about the Digitalmars-d mailing list