Remove obsolete functionality #5943
Conversation
Most of this was commented out for an extended period of time. A few things weren't but simply are not in use by any distributed package anymore.
fingolfin
added
topic: library
release notes: use title
There was a problem hiding this comment.
I am not sure what is the best way to deal with deprecated names and code.
There is a manual chapter about Replaced and Removed Command Names which documents deprecations, name changes, removed code since the time of the switch from GAP 3 to GAP 4.
If we keep this kind of documentation up to date then one can in principle find out what one should do if one has problems with some old GAP code.
On the other hand, the easiest way to understand what exactly the removed code has done is to look at this code, which is difficult if the code is no longer available.
Moreover, there is the danger that a variable name got deprecated and removed, and after some time this name is chosen (by chance) for something new, perhaps in a package, and then old code that uses the variable with that name might even not notice that there is a problem. In this sense, it would be safer to keep the deprecated names.
Most of this was commented out for an extended period of time. A few things weren't but simply are not in use by any distributed package anymore.
Specifically, the following are removed:
ReadPkgTemporaryGlobalVarNameR_NR_XAdditiveInverseAttrAdditiveInverseSMInverseAttrInverseSMOneAttrOneSMTransposedMatAttrZeroAttrZeroSMAINVINV_MUTONE_MUTZEROAll of these have been deprecated since at least December 2022.