[phobos] Deprecation of std.date

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Saturday 15 January 2011 21:50:53 Walter Bright wrote:
> Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> > And from the looks of it, _anyone_ using std.file will end up getting
> > those pragma messages, even if they _don't_ use std.date or
> > std.dateparse at all, simply because std.file uses them for functions
> > which are going to be deprecated. So, it seems to me that it's going to
> > be highly annoying all around to use the pragmas instead of just
> > deprecating them. I expect that if the pragmas weren't as heavy-handed,
> > it wouldn't be as big an issue, but they seem to print just because you
> > used a module that used a module that has such a pragma in it - even if
> > you didn't directly or indirectly use any of the functionality which was
> > scheduled for deprecation.
> 
> Then leave the pragmas off.

??? You mean not put the pgramas in std.date and std.dateparse? Doesn't that 
essentially mean that they're going to get deprecated with no warning when they 
do get deprecated? Or are you thinking that updating the documentation to say 
that they're scheduled for deprecation is enough warning? If so, I'm fine with 
that, but I expect that that will primarily mean that new code will use 
std.datetime rather than the old code being fixed before std.date is actually 
deprecated, since I wouldn't really expect anyone to be reading the 
documentation unless they weren't already using the functions and familiar with 
them.

Regardless, what you're proposing then is that I mark std.date and std.dateparse 
as scheduled for deprecation now but that I don't actually use the pragma. Then, 
in a release or two or whenever we decide to deprecate them, we mark them as 
deprecated. So, anyone who reads the documentation will be aware of the 
impending deprecation, but anyone already using the functionality without 
looking at the deprecation won't know.

- Jonathan M Davis