util: deprecate util.deprecate()

[jasnell]

Deprecate util.deprecate()... there are better userland alternatives and core is using it from
internal/util.

/cc @sam-github @nodejs/ctc

Checklist

• make -j4 test (UNIX), or vcbuild test (Windows) passes
• documentation is changed or added
• commit message follows commit guidelines

Affected core subsystem(s)

util, repl, lib, domain

[Fishrock123]

I think this is a bad or harmful course of action. It would be ideal to keep and maintain a standard for deprecation warnings with helpers for using it, especially ones that are the same as Node itself uses.

[jasnell]

I'm completely neutral on this, to be honest. The userland options are good, we do have process.emitWarning() that can be used, but this is not expensive to keep around. I'd like to hear what others think on it but wanted to at least float the idea.

[cjihrig]

No really strong opinion. If pressed, I'd say keep it (do not deprecate). Also, 👍 to the title of this PR.

[misterdjules]

In general, I'm opposed to breaking users' code when the maintenance cost is not prohibitive. In this specific case, it seems that it could break users' code and that the maintenance cost would be negligible, so I'm -1.

[jasnell]

Closing given the -1's

[sam-github]

Maintenance cost isn't non-negligible, current behaviour of the API is contested as being unclear for thirdparty users, and also insufficiently informative for node users. Its not clear we can make it good without breaking backwards compat.

See:

• Should util.deprecate() be removed from the public API? #11642
• Make warnings more beginner-friendly #11703

That said, I reluctantly agree it should not be deprecated.

Instead, I think it should be abandoned, left to sit doing exactly what it does, backwards compatibly, forever?, while node itself moves to using a different API internally, one which includes the URL to the deprecation notice, and some information on how to suppress deprecation warnings. #11703 refed above is the place for that discussion.

[sam-github]

@jasnell Thanks for floating the idea... even if it sunk :-)