Hi all, The Django deprecation timeline [1] is very inconsistent in its usage of the terminology 'deprecated'. For example, the 1.5 section often says "is deprecated" or "has been deprecated", when what they mean is "will be removed", which is what the other sections generally tend to say. Some in section 1.6 say a feature "will be deprecated".
Can we have a consistent policy on this terminology? Miriam-Webster: "deprecate: to express disapproval of" So something is 'deprecated' as soon as we say we are going to remove it - we are expressing disapproval, but allowing it to continue temporarily. The confusing thing from Python terminology is that we then add PendingDeprecationWarning, followed by DeprecationWarning, which suggest that deprecation is something that will happen in the *future*, the thing that happens when we finally remove it. But that isn't normal English usage, and we can't sensibly use 'deprecated' for both the beginning and the end of the process. So I'd suggest that we stick to: - deprecated = the first time we say we are going to remove it, and normally means we add PendingDeprecationWarning - removed - when we actually remove. In the deprecation timeline, we can simply say "X will be removed", or "X will be removed in favour of Y". If it is outside the normal deprecation policy in some way, we can mention that, otherwise no need to say which version it was deprecated in. In our release notes, we carry on announcing deprecation as we are doing now. The only problem is that our 'deprecation timeline' effectively becomes a 'removal timeline', but I think it will be clear enough if the rest of our terminology is. Comments? Luke [1] https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/internals/deprecation/ -- "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." (Jane Austen) Luke Plant || http://lukeplant.me.uk/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To post to this group, send email to django-developers@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en.
