Deprecated Library Functions / Methods

[Johannes Pfau]

Am Sat, 01 Dec 2012 16:52:19 -0800
schrieb Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg at gmx.com>:

> > 
> > Shouldn't the new version be called std.xml2 while leaving the
> > old std.xml in phobos? Basically no replacement.
> 
> We've talked about doing that with modules that we intend to replace
> where it doesn't make sense to give them a new name - std.xml being
> one of them - but nothing like that has happened yet. The closest
> would be std.regexp -> std.regex and std.date -> std.datetime, and
> both of those obviously involved renaming. But I would expect std.xml
> to be replaced with std.xml2 at some point.
> 
> We _were_ looking at outright throwing std.xml away at one point and
> then replacing it later, given how bad it is, but we never quite did
> that, and at this point, I wouldn't expect it to happen. We've been
> focusing more on avoiding breaking code of late, and so, doing
> something like that probably wouldn't be deemed acceptable at this
> point.
> 
> - Jonathan M Davis

Avoiding breaking code is always a good goal, but I think it's too
early for phobos. Code like std.xml, std.outbuffer should have never
been a part of phobos. I think one last big break would be best for
everyone.

Right now we have can't promise not to break code because
we can't keep and support code like std.xml forever but we also can't
simply remove std.xml because we try to avoid breaking code. So we
deprecate small parts of modules in every release which is a pita for
everyone. Dropping all sub-par code and fixing naming conventions in
one release would get us a clean restart without all that cruft.