In computer software standards and documentation, the term deprecation is applied to software features that are superseded and should be avoided. Although deprecated features remain in the current version, their use may raise warning messages recommending alternate practices, and deprecation may indicate that the feature will be removed in the future. Features are deprecated—rather than being removed—in order to provide backward compatibility and give programmers using the feature time to bring their code into compliance with the new standard. In Technology, especially Computing (irrespective of platform a product is said to be backward compatible when it is able to take the place of an older product

Programmers or standards-makers may choose to deprecate a feature for any number of reasons. Some common cases are:

• The feature has been replaced by a more powerful, alternative feature. For instance, the Linux kernel contains two filesystem drivers to access Windows file servers — smbfs and cifsfs. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS In Computing, a file system (often also written as filesystem) is a method for storing and organizing Computer files and the data they contain to make Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. The later (cifsfs) provides better security, supports more server features, and integrates better with the rest of the kernel. Since the inclusion of cifsfs, smbfs has been deprecated.
• The feature contains a design flaw—frequently a security flaw—and so should be avoided, but existing code depends upon it. The C standard function gets() is an example of this. tags please moot on the talk page first! --> In Computing, C is a general-purpose cross-platform block structured gets is a function in the C standard library, declared in the Header file Stdio Using this function can introduce a buffer overflow into the program that uses it. In Computer security and programming, a buffer overflow, or buffer overrun, is an anomalous condition where a process attempts to However, it cannot be removed as it is part of the C standard, and a compiler which lacks it would be out of conformance. Therefore, compilers raise warnings when it is used. A compiler is a Computer program (or set of programs that translates text written in a computer language (the source language) into another
• The feature is considered extraneous, and will be removed in the future in order to simplify the system as a whole. Early versions of the Web markup language HTML included a FONT element, to allow page designers to specify the font in which text should be displayed. The World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked Hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. A markup language is an Artificial language using a set of annotations to text that give instructions regarding the structure of text or how it is to be displayed HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure In typography a font (also fount) is traditionally defined as a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular Typeface. With the release of Cascading Style Sheets and HTML 4. 0, the FONT element became extraneous, and detracted from the benefits of noting structural markup in HTML and graphical formatting in CSS. Thus, the FONT element was deprecated in the Transitional HTML 4. 0 standard, and eliminated in the Strict variant.
• A future version of the software is planned to make major structural changes, which make it impossible (or impractical) to support older features. For instance, when Apple Computer planned the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, it created a subset of the older system's API which would support most programs with minor changes. Apple Inc, ( formerly Apple Computer Inc, is an American Multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing Consumer electronics Mac OS 9 is the final major release of Apple's "Classic" Mac OS. Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently This became the Carbon library, available in both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. Carbon is Apple Inc 's procedural API for the Macintosh Operating system, which permits a good degree of forward and backward compatibility Programmers (who were, at the time, chiefly using Mac OS 9) could ensure that their programs would run natively on Mac OS X by using only the API functions in Carbon. Other Mac OS 9 functions were deprecated, and were never supported natively in Mac OS X.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Other usage 3 See also 4 References

Etymology

In mainstream English, the infinitive "to deprecate" means, simply, "to strongly disapprove of (something)". It derives from the Latin verb deprecare, meaning "to ward off (a disaster) by prayer". Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. A disaster is the impact of a natural or human-made hazard that negatively affects society or environment. Thus, for a standards document to state that a feature is deprecated is merely a recommendation against using it. This can be contrasted with the word obsolete, which means specifically that the feature has been superseded by a newer version (and in fact one could think of pedantic examples where the newer feature is actually the "deprecated" one).

Other usage

A particular term or expression may be deprecated when the term becomes obsolete, essentially superfluous and either has no meaning or serves no purpose and becomes essentially empty verbiage. For example, in copyright, it was common to comply with the terms of the Buenos Aires Convention treaty by including a statement of rights such as all rights reserved, however, once every country that was a signatory to the Buenos Aires Convention also became a signatory to the Berne Convention treaty (because Berne does not require any form of notice), the use of the term "all rights reserved" has been essentially deprecated, as it no longer serves any purpose and grants no additional right or protection not already available if the statement were never used. The Buenos Aires Convention is a Copyright Treaty signed at Buenos Aires on 1910-04-11 which provides for the mutual recognition of copyrights A Treaty is an agreement under International law entered into by actors in international law namely States and International organizations. "All rights reserved" is a phrase that originated in Copyright law as part of copyright notices The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing Copyright In this instance, deprecated is a better term to describe the condition than obsolete, because a term that is deprecated might have some use or value. An example in paleontology would be Brontosaurus, a deprecated term for the genus Apatosaurus. Palaeontology redirects here For the Scientific journal, see Palaeontology (journal.

See also

• Abandonware
• Orphaned technology
• Self-deprecation, a type of humor

References

Abandonware refers to Computer software that is no longer sold or supported or whose Copyright ownership may be unclear for various reasons Orphaned technology is a descriptive term for Computer products programs and platforms that have been abandoned by their original developers Self-deprecation is a form of Humor in which people or Comedians make jokes about themselves their shortcomings or their culture usually without

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