Deprecation (As practiced elsewhere)
How and When To Deprecate APIs
- http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/
misc/deprecation/deprecation.html- "Deprecated" in the context of HTML
Definition of obsolete on the same page- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/conform.html#deprecated
- Professional Programmer's Guide to Fortran77
Contains a chapter on deprecated & obsolete features- http://skyron.harvard.edu/girash/prof77/prof77.html
- Fortran90 for Fortran77 Programmers
- http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~cgp/f90course/f90.html
- ECMAScript Standard
Includes section on forward compatibility, i.e. future reserved keywords- ftp://ftp.ecma.ch/ecma-st/Ecma-262.pdf
Deprecation (Microsoft style)
While earlier versions of Visual Basic are targeted for Microsoft Windows client applications, Visual Basic .NET is intended for creating XML Web service applications as well. For this purpose, Visual Basic .NET generates managed code for the common language runtime. This entails changes to the language itself.
The changes in Visual Basic .NET are intended to:
- Simplify the language and make it more consistent.
- Add new features requested by users.
- Make code easy to read and maintain.
- Help programmers avoid introducing coding errors.
- Make applications more robust and easier to debug.
The following topics describe language changes from previous versions in Visual Basic .NET.
In This Section
- Programming Element Support Changes Summary
- Provides an alphabetical list of programming elements that have changed or are no longer supported in Visual Basic .NET, and includes their replacements.
- Array Changes
- Provides links to topics covering changes to array bounds, size declarations, and the ReDim statement.
- Data Type Changes
- Provides links to topics covering changes to data type declaration, usage, and conversion, as well as the Integer and Universal types.
- Declaration Changes
- Provides links to topics covering changes to declaration syntax, string length, structures, and the scope of variables inside blocks.
- Function Changes
- Provides links to topics covering changes to the Format function, functions related to dates and times, and functions that include the String ($) suffix.
- Miscellaneous Changes
- Provides links to topics covering changes to operators and file handling.
- Object and Component Changes
- Provides links to topics covering changes to object creation, binary compatibility, and interfaces and classes.
- Procedure Changes
- Provides links to topics covering changes to parameter passing, procedure calling sequences, and procedure declarations.
- Property Changes
- Provides links to topics covering changes to default properties, property procedures, and property arguments.
- Control Flow Changes
- Provides links to topics covering changes to execution flow, and new support for structured exception handling.
Related Sections
- What's New in the Visual Basic Language
- Includes information on inheritance, interfaces, overloading, multithreading, structured exception handling, custom attributes, and common language specification compliance.
- Introduction to Visual Basic .NET for Visual Basic Veterans
- Covers changes to Visual Basic that include, among others, Web functionality, projects, forms, constants, the Circle, Line, and Pset methods, and the integrated development environment (IDE).
- Visual Basic Language and Run-Time Reference
- Provides a complete reference for the Visual Basic language and its run-time elements.
- Visual Basic .NET Language Specification
- Provides a complete description of the Visual Basic .NET language, including syntax, semantics, and design.
Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/
