From owner-freebsd-audit Wed Jul 25 9: 5:59 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-audit@freebsd.org Received: from axl.seasidesoftware.co.za (axl.seasidesoftware.co.za [196.31.7.201]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DB4FC37B41C; Wed, 25 Jul 2001 09:03:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from sheldonh@starjuice.net) Received: from sheldonh (helo=axl.seasidesoftware.co.za) by axl.seasidesoftware.co.za with local-esmtp (Exim 3.31 #1) id 15PR9J-0001o1-00; Wed, 25 Jul 2001 18:04:37 +0200 From: Sheldon Hearn To: Mike Barcroft Cc: Peter Pentchev , phantom@FreeBSD.org, audit@FreeBSD.org, ache@FreeBSD.org, des@FreeBSD.org, jabley@automagic.org Subject: Re: whois(1) new features for review In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 25 Jul 2001 12:09:52 -0400." <20010725120952.B77004@coffee.q9media.com> Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 18:04:37 +0200 Message-ID: <6944.996077077@axl.seasidesoftware.co.za> Sender: owner-freebsd-audit@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, 25 Jul 2001 12:09:52 -0400, Mike Barcroft wrote: > Peter is correct. It was my intention to slowly phase it out, but now > that I think about it, if I completely remove the -R option, getopt(3) > will tell the user that it's an illegal option and display the usage. That's not how things get deprecated. The way it used to work was, I think: 1) Mention is made in the manual page that the option, utility or interface is deprecated. 2) The option, utility or interface is preserved until the next major release. 3) The option, utility or interface is removed and no longer documented. It is now obsolete. In addition to this, two ideas that I like are 1) Use of deprecated features causes warnings to be generated until the feature is obsoleted. 2) Release notes warn about both deprecation and obsoletion. I think this willy-nilly instantaneous removal of features usually just annoys users for the sake of gratifying the impatience of committers. :-) Ciao, Sheldon. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-audit" in the body of the message