RE: Delete variables obsolete since Emacs 23

[Drew Adams]

> >> I think the gentle annoyance we have now strikes the right balance
> >> between not letting people forget the fact of obsolescence and not
> >> annoying them too much.  We are talking to adults, not to children, so
> >> we can rely on them doing TRT.
> >
> > +1.  It's obsolete, but we leave it in the product,
> 
> That is not what he said.

Eli can weigh in on whether it is or isn't.

Isn't that exactly what "we have now": declaration
of obsolescence, without removal?

That's what I understood by "the gentle annoyance
we have now".

And I agree that that "strikes the right balance"
by (1) reminding about obsolescence and (2) not
annoying too much.

> > so as to not annoy those who don't, or can't
> > easily, work around its absence.
> 
> If there's no intention to remove it in the future,
> then we don't declare it obsolete.

Is that written on the foundation stone of GNU
Emacs somewhere?

That's not how deprecation/obsolescence is viewed
in general, e.g. outside Emacs.

Something is deprecated or declared obsolete
because we no longer want to commit to its active
development, for WHATEVER reason (and the reasons
can be several).

Often, that's because some other, better thing
replaces it, but that's not a requirement.

Not wanting to commit to active development (e.g.
improvement, new features) is not the same thing
as an intention to remove.  I think you have a
very (unnecessarily) strong view of deprecation.

One of the main ideas behind deprecation is to
NOT tie your hands wrt future decisions.  All
that's decided is, so far, to not develop the
thing further.

The message to users is (1) the thing is still
supported (it's not removed), but only AS IS, so
(2) don't expect further development.

Removing something is what's normally called
"desupport": XYZ is no longer supported.  Trying
to use it raises an error, or is ignored (no-op),
etc.

You _cannot_ use something that's _desupported_.
You're advised/warned that you might not want to
use something that's deprecated.

Even for commercial software, there are quite
often features that are deprecated with NO
intention to _ever_ remove them.  Why?  Because
of an existing customer base, with legacy code.