On 08 Apr 2012, at 21:30, Chet Ramey wrote: > On 4/8/12 3:02 PM, Maarten Billemont wrote: > >> Any particular reason for not removing old undocumented functionality, or is >> that mostly the nature of this beast - dragging along and maintaining >> ancient code for the sake of compatibility?= > > Because, as Linda discovered, there is still working code out there using > it. Maybe we'll get to a point where it's all gone, but we're not there > yet.
IMO, the working code out there that relies on $[...] either runs on older versions of bash, or if the sysadmin decided to upgrade bash, he can assume the responsibility to fix the code. I suppose a deprecation route would make such a scenario least painful. Though I don't think bash has ever taken this approach yet (removal of features), it will be unexpected and people will likely complain. In the end one must decide between a lean code base and keeping the 1% happy to upgrade.
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