Should You Monitor Deprecated Software?
Software features are frequently deprecated in most active software packages. For those of you not familiar with the term Deprecation, a simple description may be that a feature is considered obsolete, and future releases may not support the feature any longer.
Deprecation happens for a number of reasons. Sometimes features are deprecated and re-introduced in a different fashion or syntax, often to make it more compliant with a broader standard. For example, SQL Server used the command DUMP to backup databases, and later replaced it with the ANSI compliant term BACKUP.
Most companies prefer to keep fairly current with software releases. Even if they aren’t keeping with recent releases, they tend to try and keep with releases that are currently supported by the vendor for bug fixes etc. I would imagine there are few companies still using SQL Server 6.5 or earlier. People don’t like to work only on old versions because it may be difficult to find work elsewhere should the need arise.
This lays the groundwork for why Deprecation is something where you should be alert. If a feature is being deprecated, but it is used frequently in your infrastructure, you are going to have a bit of re-tooling to move to a newer release. It doesn’t always force you into a specific date for the change. If your system has a long enough life cycle, you will probably have to adapt eventually.
Keeping aware of deprecated features is a great practice. Usually deprecated features continue support for a period of time, allowing both techniques to be utilized. Because of this practice, you can begin using the new feature for new implementations reducing the amount of re-tooling you will have to do in the future.
Do you keep track of Deprecated features? Have you been bitten by deprecated features by not keeping aware of future changes? Are there features you wish were never deprecated? Get into the conversation by dropping me an Email at btaylor@sswug.org, or leave a comment here.
Cheers,
Ben
$$SWYNK$$
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