Subject: Re: [1.8.0] Remove deprecated commands

From: René Scharfe <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:42:44 +0100

Am 02.02.2011 01:57, schrieb Jonathan Nieder:
>>     git-lost-found   2007-11-08       git fsck --lost-found
>
> It can stay in contrib/examples for inspiration.

Sure.

>>     git-peek-remote  2007-11-24       git ls-remote
>
> No one seems to be using it
> (github.com/gitpan/App-GitHub-FindRepository.git uses it as a fallback
> when ls-remote is not present).

How did you search for current usage?  How comprehensive are the results?

>>     git-repo-config  2008-01-17       git config
>
> giggle[1] still uses it --- see libgiggle-git/giggle-git-config-read.c
> and giggle-git-config-write.c.
>
> Likewise darcs2git[2] and the stgit testsuite.
>
> webkit's VCSUtils.pm only uses repo-config as a fallback when git
> config is not present.

Well, the release notes for 1.5.4 promised that the "next feature 
release will remove it".  Perhaps notifying the developers of the 
projects you discovered is enough?

That said, the benefit for final removal of this command, which is 
effectively just an alias, is the smallest of the four.

>>     git-tar-tree     2007-11-08       git archive
>
> Already prints a deprecation notice.  WWW::PkgFind from CPAN uses it
> but doesn't seem to be maintained.
>
> pilgrim[3] uses tar-tree in its "make dist" target.  I wouldn't be
> surprised if some other projects use it in a similar way.

Possibly, and this shows that deprecation warnings don't fully solve the 
problem of educating users to switch to the replacements.

I think it's relatively safe to remove the command anyway because the 
users in this case are developers and packagers, i.e. the ones who put 
the command in the Makefile in the first place.  They should be able to 
cope easily.

René