Two separate topics on this message:

First - I wanted to point out that my fierce defense of the hebrev()

function does not in fact extend to hebrevc() . As much as I think the RFC

was really wrong about hebrev() , and we got scarily close to deprecating a

functionality that - while somewhat esoteric - can be extremely useful and

cannot be easily replicated in any way - I have to say that I think the RFC

is pretty much correct on hebrevc() . I don't think it's very plausible

hebrevc() is still in use today - and even if we're missing something and it

is - it can be implemented in a one liner with 100.00% compatibility. While

I don't think it brings much value to deprecate it - perhaps sending the

message that you shouldn't be using it for HTML bears some level of value.

I voted in favor.

Now, with that said - I would really encourage everyone who voted on this

RFC (as well as ones who haven't) to take a look at what I would call the

'contentious votes' in there. In a nutshell, votes with a substantial

amount of people voting against the deprecation. If you voted 'yes' for one

of these - please consider, for a moment, whether your position on it is

"It's evil, I really think we're better off without it" or whether it's more

of a "I don't think it's very useful". If it's the former - by all means,

keep your vote. But if it's the latter - please consider the possibility

that the fact that a substantial number of people feel strongly enough about

keeping it to vote against the deprecation (and let's admit it - against the

odds), may mean it is, in fact, useful - even if you don't find it useful

yourself.

While we can argue whether consensus-based voting makes sense for votes in

general, I think it's tenfold more important when dealing with deprecations.

If there's a substantial minority that thinks a feature is still useful - we

should keep it - unless there's a real tangible cost associated with keeping

it. For most of the proposed deprecations - that cost is simply not there.

For reference, this is what consensus looks like:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/asfgt98rss3xyw2/consensus.PNG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iia7ua4xh6bihe3/consensus2.PNG?dl=0

And this is what it doesn't look like:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/56jdl2v1lpxba49/no-consensus.PNG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hj8jozuun7a4w42/no-consensus2.PNG?dl=0

To connect with the first point - the hebrevc() vote certainly looks a lot

more like the latter than the former, but I do believe it's mostly related

to confusion with hebrev() and as the author of both - I feel comfortable

supporting its removal :)

Thanks for your consideration,

Zeev