On 26/03/13 09:03, Platonides wrote:
On 25/03/13 18:39, Greg Grossmeier wrote:
- Deprecations - SELF-TODO: We don't have any guarantee, that I can see, that we deprecate for X releases before we remove
Not exactly a guarantee, but the general rule we use is to keep deprecated for a couple releases before removing. It's briefly explained at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Deprecation
It's hard to make an incontrovertible rule. Sometimes, removal of an interface is urgently required to support a rewrite of code which the interface depends on. If the interface is rarely or never used, it's hard to support the assertion that the rewrite should be delayed for a deprecation period of a year or two.
On the other hand, I think that code which is harmless, and uses stable interfaces, thus requiring little maintenance, can be kept for decades. I don't think removal of deprecated code should be routine. Routine removal breaks extensions (especially those outside our git repo) with little benefit in return.
-- Tim Starling