From: Eric Wong Date: 2018-09-18T09:17:38+00:00 Subject: [ruby-core:89061] Re: [Ruby trunk Feature#5400][Assigned] Remove flip-flops in 2.0 mame@ruby-lang.org wrote: > There were some programs that used flip-flops in build > scripts. I rewrote them to a code that does not use > flip-flops. The work was harder than I expected. > > Honestly I'm unsure if deprecation of flip-flops is really a right way... > > https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/5400#change-72504 I don't think it is a good idea to deprecate or remove features we've supported for so long. I've been pondering on this issue more while I away... These warnings in scripting languages annoy USERS. In contrast with compiled languages: only programmers see the warning when they compile, most users never see warnings from gcc/clang. This gives languages like C more freedom than us to deprecate things (e.g. gets(3)). Furthermore, with compiled languages, the old build will continue working forever without annoying the user. I have small C programs which haven't been rebuilt in a decade or more, yet still run fine. Scripting language users don't have that luxury and will be affected by breakage when their distro upgrades Ruby for them. Not every user is a programmer and can fix every warning they encounter. And often times, the programmer who originally wrote the script has long moved on and a new user will choose something written in a different language. Looking back to a decade ago, I saw many people leave Ruby because migrating to 1.8 to 1.9 was too painful and the language was viewed as too volatile. Yet we still keep making the same mistakes and lose users as a result :< Unsubscribe: