On 2013-11-13 18:19, Dicebot wrote:
There is one thing that seems really inconvenient to me but I'd like to
see community opinion before writing a DIP :) It is all about current
semantics of "deprecated" attribute.
Right now using deprecated symbols is a warning. And if you use "-w"
switch (like most pedantic projects do) it is an error that halts the
compilation. It is possible to use "-d" to avoid breaking stuff but then
it will just work silently, with no message at all.
In practice, I tend to always apply the following deprecation path:
1) Modify the code to print message about upcoming deprecation (via
pragma(msg))
2) On previously defined date mark symbol as deprecated and define
expected removal date
3) Remove it completely
It is very inconvenient to do manually but necessary to make deprecation
process smooth - initially I just want to make users aware that some
time should be scheduled to adjust their code in future, without any
interfering with normal compilation. Then do actual deprecation that
will result in an error but still provide meaningful message about
changes that need to be made. And only after that removal is viable.
I'd really love to be able to provide date/time parameter in some way to
deprecate attribute and let compiler do all this routine for me
automatically - just print message (not a warning) if compiled before
the date, act as it does now after.
So far I have not found see any way to define a good deprecation path
with an existing toolset.
Opinions / recommendations?
AST macros :)
--
/Jacob Carlborg
