The main problem with deprecating internals is the slow cycle of Java. They first released every year, then every two years, and now every three years, and the pace seems to be slowing down further. If they still made a new release every year, they could mark something deprecated in one release and then refactor it the next. But given that they spend years between releases they don't have that luxury. This is the age-old problem of going long between releases because it's hard to release, because you go long between releases, because...
I say this in all seriousness: java should emulate PHP. The current development model of PHP produces a stable product that optimizes for the needs of the user community, ships a major release once a year and welcomes outside contribution.
I say this in all seriousness: java should emulate PHP. The current development model of PHP produces a stable product that optimizes for the needs of the user community, ships a major release once a year and welcomes outside contribution.