On 19 November 2003 20:34, Steph wrote:
> > Not to branch the discussion, but again: if we never plan on
> > removing functions, why go to the trouble of deprecating them?
> > Deprecation implies it will be removed.
> >
>
> .. and as Andi said earlier, removal without loud and clear warning
> will break thousands of scripts out there. Making users do something
> special if they want to use their old code, is a much kinder option.
> It might also kick people into updating those scripts before the
> deprecated functions actually die.
IMHO, progress from deprecated to removal should go through phases of increasing warning severity:
(1) the proposed E_STRICT (or E_DEPRECATED) which will emit a "silent" warning.
(2) a noisy warning -- at, say, E_WARNING level, which should catch most test servers but still be maskable on production boxes. (This could even have its own new warning level of, say, E_UNSUPPORTED.)
(3) removal of the feature with an E_ERROR message.
My 2-pennorth would be that (1) and (3) should only happen at an X.0.0 release, with (2) ocurring somewhere suitable in between.
Cheers!
Mike
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