Re: Use of "?" for help has been deprecated for 8 years, can we drop it?

[BALATON Zoltan via <qemu-devel@nongnu.org>]

On Thu, 1 Oct 2020, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 10/1/20 5:35 AM, Markus Armbruster wrote:
>> We deprecated "?" more than eight years ago.  We didn't have a
>> deprecation process back then, but we did purge "?" from the
>> documentation and from help texts.  Can we finally drop it?
>>
>> I'm asking because there is a patch on the list that bypasses
>> is_help_option() to not add deprecated "?" to a new place: "[PATCH v2
>> 1/4] keyval: Parse help options".
>>
>
> Did we ever issue a warning when it was used?  It's easier to argue that
> it can be dropped if users had notice of some form or another.  That
> said, I'm not heartbroken if we yank it immediately instead of letting
> it live for 2 more releases.

How about keeping it as a convenience? I find it easier to type ? than 
help and often use it instead. It's sufficiently hidden to not cause any 
confusion for those who don't know and convenient for those who know. I 
agree with Peter that it should not be something that causes that much 
trouble that it would need to be removed immediately (or even in the 
future).

Regrads,
BALATON Zoltan