deprecated adj.
Said of a program or feature that is considered obsolescent
and in the process of being phased out, usually in favor of a
specified replacement. Deprecated features can, unfortunately,
linger on for many years. This term appears with distressing
frequency in standards documents when the committees writing the
documents realize that large amounts of extant (and presumably
happily working) code depend on the feature(s) that have passed
out of favor. See also dusty
deck.
[Usage note: don't confuse this word with `depreciate', or the
verb form `deprecate' with `depreciated`. They are different
words; see any dictionary for discussion.]