On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 11:06:22 -0700, Kevin J. McCarthy wrote:
> I think even keeping a $locale alias is still better with the changes
> made. $locale no longer affects the index or various other output, so
> even goofed-up, it causes much fewer problems. Perhaps we could create
> the alias but not document it. Or document it but mark it as
> deprecated, and delete it in e.g. 1.9.
I don't have a strong preference regarding the original question, but
definitely would argue against the "create it but don't document it"
approach in general. It's very confusing as a user to find a config
file (either left over from 10 years ago on my own system, or out on the
web somewhere, or whatever) with a directive about which I can't find
any information.... especially if it behaves differently in the current
version of the application than it used to (given that at least with
some effort I would be able to find the documentation of the directive
from an old version of the manual).
Much better for the documentation to explicitely state that the setting
in question is deprecated (or removed)... and also why it was deprecated
and what the recommended replacement/alternate approach is.
(On other hand, it's fine for such information to be found in a separate
"obsolete directives" section of the manual if that makes the main part
of the manual easier to read/write.)
Nathan
