[Python-Dev] Choosing an official stance towards module deprecation in Python 3

[Berker Peksağ]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 7:59 PM, Brett Cannon <bcannon at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are two discussions going on in the issue tracker about deprecating
> some modules and it has led to the inevitable discussion of Python 2/3
> compatibility (I'm not even going to bother mentioning the issue #s as this
> thread is not about the modules specifically but module deprecation in
> general). Because I'm tired of rehashing the same discussion every time a
> module deprecation comes up I would like to make an official decision that
> we can follow any time we decide to deprecate a module.
>
> The approaches to module deprecation I have seen are:
> 1. Nothing changes to the deprecation process; you deprecate a module and
> remove it in one to two releases
> 2. Deprecate the module but with no plans for removal until Python 2.7
> reaches its EOL (I have been calling this Python 4)
> 3. Document the deprecation but no actual code deprecation
>
> I'm personally in the #2 camp. I want users to be fully aware that the
> module in question is not being updated and possibly not even getting
> non-critical bugfixes, but it's still there in Python 3 in order to make
> sure that you can have code which straddles Python 2 & 3 more easily.

+1

--Berker