Monday, January 30, 2006
What does deprecated mean?
Down here in Code Monkey land we see our languages of choice change over time. ColdFusion's classic example is the paramexists() function, which was replaced by the much better isDefined() function and CFPARAM tag. In essence, both of these things ably replace the clumsy paramexists() function, giving the developer more flexibility, and hence more power. The paramexists() function has been deprecated since 1999, and you simply can't rely on it to work anymore in our heady modern days of 2006.
And yet, people still use it and other deprecated operations. Partly I think because of inertia and partly because they never bother to check the deprecated function/tag/object list in their language of choice. In fact, the word deprecated is like the word 'obsolete'. People see it and use it anyway in our field.
The gist of all this is that today this bit me. My baby application has another connection hitting it. Way back in October I listed two searchable fields as being deprecated. I warned the developer responsible and everyone around him not to use these fields. And they were used anyway. And now the ship is about to break apart on the reef of life thanks to someone ignoring my documentation and direction.
Days like this make me wonder about the state of my chosen industry.
Down here in Code Monkey land we see our languages of choice change over time. ColdFusion's classic example is the paramexists() function, which was replaced by the much better isDefined() function and CFPARAM tag. In essence, both of these things ably replace the clumsy paramexists() function, giving the developer more flexibility, and hence more power. The paramexists() function has been deprecated since 1999, and you simply can't rely on it to work anymore in our heady modern days of 2006.
And yet, people still use it and other deprecated operations. Partly I think because of inertia and partly because they never bother to check the deprecated function/tag/object list in their language of choice. In fact, the word deprecated is like the word 'obsolete'. People see it and use it anyway in our field.
The gist of all this is that today this bit me. My baby application has another connection hitting it. Way back in October I listed two searchable fields as being deprecated. I warned the developer responsible and everyone around him not to use these fields. And they were used anyway. And now the ship is about to break apart on the reef of life thanks to someone ignoring my documentation and direction.
Days like this make me wonder about the state of my chosen industry.
# posted by Daniel Greenfeld @ 10:56 AM 
