Deprecation

In the process of authoring computer software, its standards or documentation, or other technical standards, deprecation is a status applied to features, characteristics, or practices to indicate that they should be avoided, typically because they have been superseded.

Although deprecated software features remain in the software, their use may raise warning messages recommending alternative practices, and deprecation may indicate that the feature will be removed in the future. Features are deprecated—rather than immediately removed—in order to provide backward compatibility, and give programmers who have used the feature enough time to bring their code into compliance with the new standard.