CoCoA » CoCoA-5

Anna Maria Bigatti wrote:

I added the key "obsolete".
now
[...]
gives the list of obsolete commands (which usually give motivation and modern alternatives)

Now I think of removing the key obsolete and just add (obsolete) to the title: it would work for the search and would be more evident (and visible in the index)

I think your suggestion is a good one.

I propose adding OBSOLETE (in capitals) as the first word of the title; that should make it highly visible (and probably a bit ugly, but that could be a "feature" :-))

John Abbott wrote:

I propose adding OBSOLETE (in capitals) as the first word of the title;

I made it all capital, but as the last word of the title (to keep alphabetical order)

Remember that obsolescent functions should be moved to the package obsolescent.cpkg5.
Now they all works silently.
Should they issue a warning in the last year before being removed?

Yes, obsolescent functions should give some warning that they are going to disappear (and presumably what to do instead -- perhaps in the manual page?).

One problem with warnings (e.g. forgetting a ref when calling append) is that you can get hundreds of messages appearing if you call the function in a loop. While this may encourage some users to revise their code, it could also really annoy others (e.g. me).

In summary: yes, there should be warnings about obsolescent functions, but not too many of them.

Perhaps warnings should not be printed immediately, but saved up until the next prompt, and then printed (perhaps with a repeat count?)

FURTHER THOUGHTS the message warning about obsolescence should look like a warning (e.g. starting with the string WARNING:)