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    Deprecation isn't necessarily about eventual removal, so deprecation without removal isn't pointless (and is often the right thing if backward compatibility is important). Often the point is nothing more than "we have a better way now, so you shouldn't do it this way anymore". Commented Nov 20, 2018 at 19:41
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    @cHao If something is deprecated, you should not expect it to continue to be there. I suppose if you want to make a special statement in your project that states you will not remove deprecated functionality, that's fine but otherwise, yes it is implied that there will be eventual removal. The point I am making is that if you don't maintain some sort of rigor around this, people may come to believe that it won't ever happen. This has come up with recent versions of Java where functionality that has been deprecated for a decade or more is now being removed. Commented Nov 20, 2018 at 20:24
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    @cHao I'd rather a project remove its deprecated functionality. Not only is there the benefit of users actually being motivated to switch, but it also prevents the deprecated interface from interfering with other improvements. Commented Nov 20, 2018 at 21:19
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    @cHao It's a context sensitive thing. In my experience the policy of deprecation is clear. It's clearly stated that deprecated functionality will be removed at some point in the future. Often deprecated functionality has issues making it problematic for use and it's not simply a matter of whether you value backward compatibility or not. Commented Nov 20, 2018 at 21:31
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    I'm going to chime in to agree with @JimmyJames that deprecation clearly implies impending removal. The deprecation period exists as a way of providing temporary backwards compatibility so the consumers can migrate to the newer functionality. There should be absolutely no expectation that the deprecated functionality will remain indefinitely. If the old functionality is going to remain, there's no reason to deprecate it. Commented Nov 20, 2018 at 23:09