On Friday, August 29, 2025 10:02 AM, Martin D Kealy wrote: > On Thu, 28 Aug 2025, 03:40 Chet Ramey, > <chet.ra...@case.edu<mailto:chet.ra...@case.edu>> wrote: >> This has never been documented.
> If that's true, how are there scripts using it, and people asking about it? > It's not just documentation that you've written that needs to be considered, > because clearly this feature must be mentioned SOMEWHERE. I found this feature on accident by experimenting, then I looked into it and found the feature was introduced in bash-4.3 (iirc). Interestingly enough I cannot find the reference now. >> In theory, since it's never been documented, I could flip the define in >> config-top.h and disable it by default. > This assumption is the root of the problem. > If it's not documented, then as far as some ordinary users are concerned, it > is NOT deprecated. "The user is wrong" is not an acceptable response to an > inadequacy of documentation. I tend to agree with this... If you're not communicating the fact that a feature is deprecated then how is a typical user to know that? --- Flipping to something Stan Marsh wrote about deprecation: On 8/27/25 12:30 PM, Stan Marsh wrote: >> Connor wrote: >> I'm of the opinion that if there is a supported feature with no plans for >> deprecation >> or removal, it should be documented. Even if it's not widely used, it's still >> supported with (as you said) no plans for removal. reply via email to > I'm of the opinion that the feature in question *is* deprecated and is *not* > supported, and could be removed at some future date. It is just that there > are no > plans to do - at the moment. >This is how deprecation works. You take as long as it takes to get people to >stop > using it (*), and then at some point you pull the trigger. Following this logic, it seems what Stan is saying is that this feature has been deprecated _since its release_ simply because it was never documented. It seems Chet is saying something similar here: >> In theory, since it's never been documented, I could flip the define in >> config-top.h and disable it by default. I personally think that's an absurd notion. Features deprecated on release?
