Re: RFA: Patch: annotations -vs- deprecated hooks

[Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz>]

 > When browsing gdb, I find it very strange to see how many things are
 > marked deprecated, and for how long.  E.g.,
 > deprecated_annotate_starting_hook is not set anywhere in gdb, but has
 > been deprecated since 2004.  That seems like an inordinately long
 > deprecation for something which is unused.

In Emacs, variables get marked as obsolete but they are rarely removed from the
code.  I think that RMS' view is that marking them as obsolete simply
discourages _further_ use of them and that legacy software requires that they
stay.

 > Nick> This patch, however, while probably safe (I've not checked)
 > Nick> doesn't seem worthwhile to me since this code _will_ disappear
 > Nick> in the future anyway.
 > 
 > Do you know when this will be?  If it is soon, then I don't mind
 > holding off.  If it will be a year, or years, then I think it would be
 > strange to reject a cleanup in favor of some distant, unwritten patch.

I could tell you when Emacs no longer needs them, but even then I guess
people will still be using old copies, and then there may be other
projects.  So it probably is a long way off.

Creating observers just for breakpoints results in a mixed approach for
annotations as others don't use observers and removing the deprecated label
might encourage their use.  Also, in the past, I have submitted a patch for
similar observers for use with MI which could confuse.  

  http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2008-06/msg00000.html
  http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2008-06/msg00012.html
  http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2008-06/msg00018.html

I would rather these were incorporated first since MI is the future.

I don't feel that strongly about it though and if the changes are approved
well before a release I can test them against Emacs.  Certainly (all) the
the deprecated_annotate_*_hooks could go.

-- 
Nick                                           http://www.inet.net.nz/~nickrob