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by raincole 115 days ago
Is there ever a successful programming language that occasionally removes features? Like, not just a big, one-time backward-incompatible upgrade, but occasional feature removal?
3 comments

Python removes features all the time in 3.x releases. For example, I was not a fan of the distutils removal in 3.12 which broke many legacy but otherwise functional packages. Deprecated functions and classes are also removed from packages regularly.

They do publish removal plans years in advance, e.g. see Python 3.17's plans: https://docs.python.org/3/deprecations/pending-removal-in-3....

Java, since Java 9 deprecated for removal really means it.

.NET, the whole .NET Framework to modern (core) .NET migration, left several parts behind, the foor loop semantics change on C#, introduction of field keyword, and with.