NEWS.md is getting a bit untidy

[cormullion]

I think NEWS.md is getting quite large and could do with more structure. I took a section and added a tag to each of the (currently 143) items, then sorted by tag. I think it looks better — but the section names await the enthusiastic "bikeshedding" that we all love so much!

Each item got one of the following tags (sometimes I did struggle to assign just one):

##array
##date
##env (environment)
##io
##lang (language)
##linalg (linear algebra)
##math
##random
##string
##type 

then after sorting (and removing the tags, making titles) we get this:

========================================

Deprecated

Array

• Indexing into multidimensional arrays with more than one index but fewer indices than there are dimensions is no longer permitted when those trailing dimensions have lengths greater than 1. Instead, reshape the array or add trailing indices so the dimensionality and number of indices match ([deprecate (then remove) generalized linear indexing #14770], [Deprecate the omission of trailing indices over non-singleton dimensions #23628]).

• indices(a) and indices(a,d) have been deprecated in favor of axes(a) and axes(a, d) ([RFC: Rename indices to axes #25057]).

• Uninitialized Array constructors of the form Array[{T,N}](shape...) have been deprecated in favor of equivalents accepting undef (an alias for UndefInitializer()) as their first argument, as in Array[{T,N}](undef, shape...). For example, Vector(3) is now Vector(undef, 3), Matrix{Int}((2, 4)) is now, Matrix{Int}(undef, (2, 4)), and Array{Float32,3}(11, 13, 17) is now Array{Float32,3}(undef, 11, 13, 17) ([deprecate Array(shape...)-like constructors to Array(uninitialized, shape...) #24781]).

• Using Bool values directly as indices is now deprecated and will be an error in the future. Convert them to Int before indexing if you intend to access index 1 for true and 0 for false.

• slicedim(A, d, i) has been deprecated in favor of copy(selectdim(A, d, i)). The new selectdim function now always returns a view into A; in many cases the copy is not necessary. Previously, slicedim on a vector V over dimension d=1 and scalar index i would return the just selected element (unless V was a BitVector). This has now been made consistent: selectdim now always returns a view into the original array, with a zero-dimensional view in this specific case ([Deprecate slicedim(…) to copy(selectdim(…)); always return a view #26009]).

• Uninitialized RowVector constructors of the form RowVector{T}(shape...) have been deprecated in favor of equivalents accepting undef (an alias for UndefInitializer()) as their first argument, as in RowVector{T}(undef, shape...). For example, RowVector{Int}(3) is now RowVector{Int}(undef, 3), and RowVector{Float32}((1, 4)) is now RowVector{Float32}(undef, (1, 4)) ([replace RowVector(shape...) constructors/calls with RowVector(uninitialized, shape...) #24786]).

• ones(A::AbstractArray[, opts...]) and zeros(A::AbstractArray[, opts...]) methods have been deprecated. For zeros(A), consider zero(A). For ones(A) or zeros(A), consider ones(size(A)), zeros(size(A)), fill(v, size(A)) for v an appropriate one or zero, fill!(copy(A), {1|0}), fill!(similar(A), {1|0}), or any of the preceding with different element type and/or shape depending on opts.... Where strictly necessary, consider fill!(similar(A[, opts...]), {one(eltype(A)) | zero(eltype(A))}). For an algebraic multiplicative identity, consider one(A) ([deprecate {ones|zeros}(A::AbstractArray[, opts...]) methods #24656]).

• rol, rol!, ror, and ror! have been deprecated in favor of specialized methods for circshift/circshift! ([Deprecate rol and ror in favor of circshift methods #23404]).

• The ability of reinterpret to yield Arrays of different type than the underlying storage has been removed. The reinterpret function is still available, but now returns a ReinterpretArray. The three argument form of reinterpret that implicitly reshapes has been deprecated ([Implement ReinterpretArray #23750]).

• Base.parentindexes and SharedArrays.localindexes have been renamed to parentindices and localindices, respectively. Similarly, the indexes field in the SubArray type has been renamed to indices without deprecation ([Replace all use of 'indexes' with 'indices' #25088]).

• CartesianRange has been renamed CartesianIndices ([Make CartesianRange an AbstractArray #24715]).

• sub2ind and ind2sub are deprecated in favor of using CartesianIndices and LinearIndices ([Make CartesianRange an AbstractArray #24715]).

• getindex(F::Factorization, s::Symbol) (usually seen as e.g. F[:Q]) is deprecated in favor of dot overloading (getproperty) so factors should now be accessed as e.g. F.Q instead of F[:Q] ([Deprecate getindex(::Factorization, ::Symbol) in favor of dot overloading #25184]).

• The generic implementations of strides(::AbstractArray) and stride(::AbstractArray, ::Int) have been deprecated. Subtypes of AbstractArray that implement the newly introduced strided array interface should define their own strides method ([Deprecate generic stride implementation (#17812), allow AbstractArrays to use BLAS/LAPACK routines (#25247) #25321]).

• endof(a) has been renamed to lastindex(a), and the end keyword in indexing expressions now lowers to either lastindex(a) (in the case with only one index) or lastindex(a, d) (in cases where there is more than one index and end appears at dimension d) ([Add field docs for Diffopts #23554], [Simplify A[1, end] lowering with lastindex(A, n) #25763]).

Date

• Vectorized DateTime, Date, and format methods have been deprecated in favor of dot-syntax ([deprecate vectorized methods hiding in Dates #23207]).

• a:b is deprecated for constructing a StepRange when a and b have physical units (Dates and Times). Use a:s:b, where s = Dates.Day(1) or s = Dates.Second(1).

• DateTime(), Date(), and Time() have been deprecated, instead use DateTime(1), Date(1) and Time(0) respectively ([Deprecate DateTime() Date() Time() #23724]).

Env

• The JULIA_HOME environment variable has been renamed to JULIA_BINDIR and Base.JULIA_HOME has been moved to Sys.BINDIR ([rename JULIA_HOME? #20899]).

• EnvHash has been renamed to EnvDict ([EnvHash should be immutable and be called EnvDict #24167]).

• whos has been renamed varinfo, and now returns a markdown table instead of printing output (["whos" is a bad name for the functionality #12131]).

• The function current_module is deprecated and replaced with @__MODULE__. This caused the deprecation of some reflection methods (such as macroexpand and isconst), which now require a module argument. And it caused the bugfix of other default arguments to use the Main module (including whos, which) ([replace current_module() with @__MODULE__ #22064]).

• The operating system identification functions: is_linux, is_bsd, is_apple, is_unix, and is_windows, have been deprecated in favor of Sys.islinux, Sys.isbsd, Sys.isapple, Sys.isunix, and Sys.iswindows, respectively ([RFC: Deprecate is_<os> functions in favor of is<os> #22182]).

• The default startup.jl file on Windows has been removed. Now must explicitly include the full path if you need access to executables or libraries in the Sys.BINDIR directory, e.g. joinpath(Sys.BINDIR, "7z.exe") for 7z.exe ([Remove windows specific juliarc.jl #21540]).

• Constructors for LibGit2.UserPasswordCredentials and LibGit2.SSHCredentials which take a prompt_if_incorrect argument are deprecated. Instead, prompting behavior is controlled using the allow_prompt keyword in the LibGit2.CredentialPayload constructor ([Add settings to CredentialPayload #23690]).

• The timing functions tic, toc, and toq are deprecated in favor of @time and @elapsed ([Deprecate tic and toc #17046]).

• workspace is discontinued, check out Revise.jl for an alternative workflow ([remove workspace #25046]).

Io

• writecsv(io, a; opts...) has been deprecated in favor of writedlm(io, a, ','; opts...) ([deprecate writecsv in favor of writedlm #23529]).

• readcsv(io[, T::Type]; opts...) has been deprecated in favor of readdlm(io, ','[, T]; opts...) ([deprecate readcsv in favor of readdlm #23530]).

• read(io, type, dims) is deprecated to read!(io, Array{type}(undef, dims)) ([deprecate read(io, type, dims) #21450]).

• read(::IO, ::Ref) is now a method of read!, since it mutates its Ref argument ([read(::IO, ::Ref) should be a method of read! #21592]).

• nb_available is now bytesavailable ([Rename nb_available to bytesavailable #25634]).

• The forms of read, readstring, and eachline that accepted both a Cmd object and an input stream are deprecated. Use e.g. read(pipeline(stdin, cmd)) instead ([RFC: deprecate reading functions that accept both a cmd and stdin #22762]).

• The unexported type AbstractIOBuffer has been renamed to GenericIOBuffer ([Rename AbstractIOBuffer, it's not an abstract type #17360] [rename AbstractIOBuffer => GenericIOBuffer (close #17360) #22796]).

• IOBuffer(data::AbstractVector{UInt8}, read::Bool, write::Bool, maxsize::Integer), IOBuffer(read::Bool, write::Bool), and IOBuffer(maxsize::Integer) are deprecated in favor of constructors taking keyword arguments ([add keyword arguments to IOBuffer's constructors #25872]).

• Display has been renamed to AbstractDisplay ([rename Display -> AbstractDisplay #24831]).

• The function showall is deprecated. Showing entire values is the default, unless an IOContext specifying :limit=>true is in use ([RFC: deprecate showall #22847]).

• Calling write on non-isbits arrays is deprecated in favor of explicit loops or serialize ([make write(io, Any[...]) an error #6466]).

• @printf and @sprintf have been moved to the Printf standard library ([should we move printf code out of Base? #23929],[at-[s]printf to Printf stdlib #25056]).

• print_shortest has been discontinued, but is still available in the Base.Grisu submodule ([deprecate print_shortest? #25745]).

• The remove_destination keyword argument to cp, mv, and the unexported cptree has been renamed to force ([mv: rename remove_destination keyword to force #25979]).

• DevNull, STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR have been renamed to devnull, stdin, stdout, and stderr, respectively ([Capitalization of DevNull #25786]).

• showcompact(io, x...) has been deprecated in favor of show(IOContext(io, :compact => true), x...) ([Deprecate showcompact() #26080]). Use sprint(show, x..., context=:compact => true) instead of sprint(showcompact, x...).

Lang

• expand(ex) and expand(module, ex) have been deprecated in favor of Meta.lower(module, ex) ([replace current_module() with @__MODULE__ #22064], [deprecate expand(module, ex) to Meta.lower(module, ex) #24278]).

• Omitting spaces around the ? and the : tokens in a ternary expression has been deprecated. Ternaries must now include some amount of whitespace, e.g. x ? a : b rather than x?a:b ([Deprecate no space between expression and ? in ternaries #22523] and [Sanitize the ternary operator and question mark parsing situation (deprecations only) #22712]).

• ? can no longer be used as an identifier name ([Sanitize the ternary operator and question mark parsing situation (deprecations only) #22712])

• Calling nfields on a type to find out how many fields its instances have is deprecated. Use fieldcount instead. Use nfields only to get the number of fields in a specific object ([RFC: some type reflection improvements #22350]).

• fieldnames now operates only on types. To get the names of fields in an object, use fieldnames(typeof(x)) ([RFC: some type reflection improvements #22350]).

• issubtype has been deprecated in favor of <: (which used to be an alias for issubtype).

• Calling union with no arguments is deprecated; construct an empty set with an appropriate element type using Set{T}() instead ([deprecate union() #23144]).

• filter and filter! on dictionaries now pass a single key=>value pair to the argument function, instead of two arguments ([filter(f, ::Dict) inconsistency #17886]).

• The tuple-of-types form of cfunction, cfunction(f, returntype, (types...)), has been deprecated in favor of the tuple-type form cfunction(f, returntype, Tuple{types...}) ([Add cfunction tuple of types deprecation #23066]).

• select, select!, selectperm and selectperm! have been renamed respectively to partialsort, partialsort!, partialsortperm and partialsortperm! ([Rename select* functions to partialsort* and various related fixes #23051]).

• The Range abstract type has been renamed to AbstractRange ([Rename Range to AbstractRange #23570]).

• map on dictionaries previously operated on key=>value pairs. This behavior is deprecated, and in the future map will operate only on values ([map for Dict #5794]).

• Automatically broadcasted + and - for array + scalar, scalar - array, and so-on have been deprecated due to inconsistency with linear algebra. Use .+ and .- for these operations instead ([Deprecate broadcast behaviour of + in favour of adding identity matrices #22880], [Deprecate +/- methods for array+scalar etc #22932]).

• contains(eq, itr, item) is deprecated in favor of any with a predicate ([deprecate contains(eq, itr, item) #23716]).

• Methods of findfirst, findnext, findlast, and findprev that accept a value to search for are deprecated in favor of passing a predicate ([Inconsistent order of arguments in variants of 'find' #19186], [Unifying search & find functions #10593]).

• find functions now operate only on booleans by default. To look for non-zeros, use x->x!=0 or !iszero ([Make find's default predicate be identity #23120]).

• bits has been deprecated in favor of bitstring ([deprecate bits to bitstring #24281], [rename bits to bitstring? #24263]).

• copy! is deprecated for AbstractSet and AbstractDict, with the intention to re-enable it with a cleaner meaning in a future version ([deprecate copy! for sets and dicts (part of #24808) #24844]).

• copy! (resp. unsafe_copy!) is deprecated for AbstractArray and is renamed copyto! (resp. unsafe_copyto!); it will be re-introduced with a different meaning in a future version ([deprecate some copy! methods #24808]).

• trues(A::AbstractArray) and falses(A::AbstractArray) are deprecated in favor of trues(size(A)) and falses(size(A)) respectively ([design of array constructors #24595]).

• The Libdl module has moved to the Libdl standard library module ([move Libdl to stdlib #25459]).

• Associative has been deprecated in favor of AbstractDict ([RFC: Rename Associative to AbstractDict #25012]).

• Void has been renamed back to Nothing with an alias Cvoid for use when calling C with a return type of Cvoid or a return or argument type of Ptr{Cvoid} ([a more earnest attempt at renaming Void #25162]).

• Nullable{T} has been deprecated and moved to the Nullables package ([Replace Nullable{T} with Union{Some{T}, Void} #23642]). Use Union{T, Nothing} instead, or Union{Some{T}, Nothing} if nothing is a possible value (i.e. Nothing <: T). isnull(x) can be replaced with x === nothing and unsafe_get/get can be dropped or replaced with coalesce. NullException has been removed.

• unshift! and shift! have been renamed to pushfirst! and popfirst! ([Rename shift! and unshift! ? #23902])

• ipermute! has been deprecated in favor of invpermute! ([deprecate ipermute! in favor of invpermute! #25168]).

• search and rsearch have been deprecated in favor of findfirst/findnext and findlast/findprev respectively, in combination with curried isequal and in predicates for some methods ([Clean up search and find API #24673]

• similar(::Associative) has been deprecated in favor of empty(::Associative), and similar(::Associative, ::Pair{K, V}) has been deprecated in favour of empty(::Associative, K, V) ([Add empty and change similar(::Associative) #24390]).

• findin(a, b) has been deprecated in favor of findall(in(b), a) ([Clean up search and find API #24673]).

• module_name has been deprecated in favor of a new, general nameof function. Similarly, the unexported Base.function_name and Base.datatype_name have been deprecated in favor of nameof methods ([Deprecate module_name in favor of nameof(::Module) #25622]).

• module_parent, Base.datatype_module, and Base.function_module have been deprecated in favor of parentmodule ([#TODO]).

• The assert function (and @assert macro) have been documented that they are not guaranteed to run under various optimization levels and should therefore not be used to e.g. verify passwords.

• ObjectIdDict has been deprecated in favor of IdDict{Any,Any} ([RFC: IdDict replaces ObjectIdDict #25210]).

• gc and gc_enable have been deprecated in favor of GC.gc and GC.enable ([Move gc and gc_enable to their own module #25616]).

• Base.@gc_preserve has been deprecated in favor of GC.@preserve ([Move gc and gc_enable to their own module #25616]).

• scale! has been deprecated in favor of mul!, lmul!, and rmul! ([Deprecate scale! in favor of mul!, mul1!, and mul2! #25701], [Change mul1! and mul2! to rmul! and lmul! #25812]).

• The methods of range based on positional arguments have been deprecated in favor of keyword arguments ([Fold linspace into range, add keyword arguments, deprecate logspace #25896]).

• linspace has been deprecated in favor of range with stop and length keyword arguments ([Fold linspace into range, add keyword arguments, deprecate logspace #25896]).

• wait and fetch on Task now resemble the interface of Future.

Linalg

• LinAlg.fillslots! has been renamed LinAlg.fillstored! ([LinAlg.fillslots! -> LinAlg.fillstored! #25030]).

• fill!(A::Diagonal, x) and fill!(A::AbstractTriangular, x) have been deprecated in favor of Base.LinAlg.fillstored!(A, x) ([deprecate fill!(A::[Diagonal|AbstractTriangular], x) = fillslots!(A, x) methods #24413]).

• eye has been deprecated in favor of I and Matrix constructors. Please see the deprecation warnings for replacement details ([eye see deprecated methods #24438]).

• zeros(D::Diagonal[, opts...]) has been deprecated ([deprecate zeros(D::Diagonal[, opts...]) methods #24654]).

• sparse(s::UniformScaling, m::Integer) has been deprecated in favor of the three-argument equivalent sparse(s::UniformScaling, m, n) ([deprecate sparse(s::UniformScaling, m::Integer) in favor of three-arg equivalent #24472]).

• The cholfact/cholfact! methods that accepted an uplo symbol have been deprecated in favor of using Hermitian (or Symmetric) views ([cholfact[!] does not respect the uplo character #22187], [deprecate cholfact[!](A, uplo) #22188]).

• The thin keyword argument for orthogonal decomposition methods has been deprecated in favor of full, which has the opposite meaning: thin == true if and only if full == false ([deprecate orthogonal decomposition keyword "thin" to "full" #24279]).

• isposdef(A::AbstractMatrix, UL::Symbol) and isposdef!(A::AbstractMatrix, UL::Symbol) have been deprecated in favor of isposdef(Hermitian(A, UL)) and isposdef!(Hermitian(A, UL)) respectively ([isposdef rewrite with help of cholfact #22245]).

• The bkfact/bkfact! methods that accepted uplo and issymmetric symbols have been deprecated in favor of using Hermitian (or Symmetric) views ([Adjust signatures for bkfact to use Symmetric and Hermitian #22605]).

• Bidiagonal constructors now use a Symbol (:U or :L) for the upper/lower argument, instead of a Bool or a Char ([Use Symbol for uplo in Bidiagonal constructors #22703]).

• Bidiagonal, Tridiagonal and SymTridiagonal constructors that automatically converted the input vectors to the same type are deprecated in favor of explicit conversion ([parametrize Bidiagonal on wrapped vector type #22925], [parametrize SymTridiagonal on the wrapped vector type #23035], [parametrize Tridiagonal on the wrapped vector type #23154].

• Remaining vectorized methods over SparseVectors, particularly floor, ceil, trunc, round, and most common transcendental functions such as exp, log, and sin variants, have been deprecated in favor of dot-syntax ([crush the vectorized method resistance #22961]).

• full has been deprecated in favor of more specific, better defined alternatives. On structured matrices A, consider instead Matrix(A), Array(A), SparseMatrixCSC(A), or sparse(A). On sparse arrays S, consider instead Vector(S), Matrix(S), or Array(S) as appropriate. On factorizations F, consider instead Matrix(F), Array(F), AbstractMatrix(F), or AbstractArray(F). On implicit orthogonal factors Q, consider instead Matrix(Q) or Array(Q); for implicit orthogonal factors that can be recovered in square or truncated form, see the deprecation message for square recovery instructions. On Symmetric, Hermitian, or AbstractTriangular matrices A, consider instead Matrix(S), Array(S), SparseMatrixCSC(S), or sparse(S). On Symmetric matrices A particularly, consider instead LinAlg.copytri!(copy(parent(A)), A.uplo). On Hermitian matrices A particularly, consider instead LinAlg.copytri!(copy(parent(A)), A.uplo, true). On UpperTriangular matrices A particularly, consider instead triu!(copy(parent(A))). On LowerTriangular matrices A particularly, consider instead tril!(copy(parent(A))) ([go gentle into that good night, full #24250]).

• speye has been deprecated in favor of I, sparse, and SparseMatrixCSC constructor methods ([eye speye deprecated methods #24356]).

• ctranspose and ctranspose! have been deprecated in favor of adjoint and adjoint!, respectively ([Rename ctranspose to adjoint #23235]).

• Base.SparseArrays.SpDiagIterator has been removed ([diag of SparseMatrixCSC should always return SparseVector #23261]).

• diagm(v::AbstractVector, k::Integer=0) has been deprecated in favor of diagm(k => v) ([rewrite diagm with Pair's #24047]).

• diagm(x::Number) has been deprecated in favor of fill(x, 1, 1) ([rewrite diagm with Pair's #24047]).

• diagm(A::SparseMatrixCSC) has been deprecated in favor of spdiagm(sparsevec(A)) ([deprecate diagm(A::SparseMatrixCSC) in favor of spdiagm(sparsevec(A)) #23341]).

• diagm(A::BitMatrix) has been deprecated, use diagm(0 => vec(A)) or BitMatrix(Diagonal(vec(A))) instead ([deprecate diagm(A::BitMatrix) #23373], [rewrite diagm with Pair's #24047]).

• GMP.gmp_version(), GMP.GMP_VERSION, GMP.gmp_bits_per_limb(), and GMP.GMP_BITS_PER_LIBM have been renamed to GMP.version(), GMP.VERSION, GMP.bits_per_libm(), and GMP.BITS_PER_LIBM, respectively. Similarly, MPFR.get_version(), has been renamed to MPFR.version() ([Unify the method name to get library versions #23323]). Also, LinAlg.LAPACK.laver() has been renamed to LinAlg.LAPACK.version() and now returns a VersionNumber.

• spdiagm(x::AbstractVector) has been deprecated in favor of sparse(Diagonal(x)) alternatively spdiagm(0 => x) ([Rewrite spdiagm with pairs #23757]).

• spdiagm(x::AbstractVector, d::Integer) and spdiagm(x::Tuple{<:AbstractVector}, d::Tuple{<:Integer}) have been deprecated in favor of spdiagm(d => x) and spdiagm(d[1] => x[1], d[2] => x[2], ...) respectively. The new spdiagm implementation now always returns a square matrix ([Rewrite spdiagm with pairs #23757]).

• spones(A::AbstractSparseArray) has been deprecated in favor of LinAlg.fillstored!(copy(A), 1) ([deprecate spones #25037]).

• The functions eigs and svds have been moved to the IterativeEigensolvers standard library module ([RFC: Move iterative eigensolvers to the stdlib #24714]).

• Sparse array functionality has moved to the SparseArrays standard library module ([move SparseArrays to stdlib #25249]).

• Linear algebra functionality, and specifically the LinAlg module has moved to the LinearAlgebra standard library module ([Base.LinAlg to LinearAlgebra stdlib #25571]).

Math

• The Operators module is deprecated. Instead, import required operators explicitly from Base, e.g. import Base: +, -, *, / ([remove Operators module #22251]).

• Bindings to the FFTW library have been removed from Base. The DFT framework for building FFT implementations is now in AbstractFFTs.jl, the bindings to the FFTW library are in FFTW.jl, and the Base signal processing functions which used FFTs are now in DSP.jl ([Remove the FFTW bindings from Base #21956]).

• The corrected positional argument to cov has been deprecated in favor of a keyword argument with the same name ([Make cov's corrected argument a keyword argument and cleanup docstrings for cov and cor #21709]).

• InexactError, DomainError, and OverflowError now take arguments. InexactError(func::Symbol, type, -3) now prints as "ERROR: InexactError: func(type, -3)", DomainError(val, [msg]) prints as "ERROR: DomainError with val:\nmsg", and OverflowError(msg) prints as "ERROR: OverflowError: msg". ([Make InexactError more informative #20005], [Make DomainError more informative #22751], [Make OverflowError more informative #22761])

• sqrtm has been deprecated in favor of sqrt ([deprecate sqrtm in favor of sqrt #23504]).

• expm has been deprecated in favor of exp ([deprecate expm in favor of exp #23233]).

• logm has been deprecated in favor of log ([deprecate logm in favor of log #23505]).

• ℯ (written as \mscre<TAB> or \euler<TAB>) is now the only (by default) exported name for Euler's number, and the type has changed from Irrational{:e} to Irrational{:ℯ} ([Move irrational constants to its own module #23427]).

• The mathematical constants π, pi, ℯ, e, γ, eulergamma, catalan, φ and golden have been moved from Base to a new module; Base.MathConstants. Only π, pi and ℯ are now exported by default from Base ([Move irrational constants to its own module #23427]).

• eu (previously an alias for ℯ) has been deprecated in favor of ℯ (or MathConstants.e) ([Move irrational constants to its own module #23427]).

• gradient is deprecated and will be removed in the next release ([deprecate/remove gradient from base #23816]).

• cumsum, cumprod, accumulate, their mutating versions, and diff all now require a dim argument instead of defaulting to using the first dimension unless there is only one dimension ([Deprecate cumsum, cumprod, cumsum_kbn, and accumulate when dim isn't specified #24684], [Deprecate diff(::AbstractMatrix), require a dim argument #25457]).

• The sum_kbn and cumsum_kbn functions have been moved to the KahanSummation package ([Deprecate (cum)sum_kbn #24869]).

• isnumber has been renamed to isnumeric ([Move Unicode-related functions to new Unicode stdlib package #25021]).

• The aliases Complex32, Complex64 and Complex128 have been deprecated in favor of ComplexF16, ComplexF32 and ComplexF64 respectively ([rename Complex{32,64,128} to ComplexF{16,32,64} #24647]).

• LinSpace has been renamed to LinRange ([Fold linspace into range, add keyword arguments, deprecate logspace #25896]).

• logspace has been deprecated to its definition ([Fold linspace into range, add keyword arguments, deprecate logspace #25896]).

• The fallback method ^(x, p::Integer) is deprecated. If your type relied on this definition, add a method such as ^(x::MyType, p::Integer) = Base.power_by_squaring(x, p) ([Deprecate ^(x, p::Integer) #23332]).

Random

• The method srand(rng, filename, n=4) has been deprecated ([deprecate srand(rng, filename::AbstractString, n=4) #21359]).

• The module Random.dSFMT is renamed Random.DSFMT ([rename module Random.dSFMT -> Random.DSFMT #25567]).

• Random.RandomDevice(unlimited::Bool) (on non-Windows systems) is deprecated in favor of Random.RandomDevice(; unlimited=unlimited) ([change RandomDevice(unlimited::Bool) to RandomDevice(; unlimited::Bool) #25668]).

• rand(t::Tuple{Vararg{Int}}) is deprecated in favor of rand(Float64, t) or rand(t...); rand(::Tuple) will have another meaning in the future ([deprecate rand(::Tuple) #25429], [add rand(::Tuple) #25278]).

String

• The method replace(s::AbstractString, pat, r, [count]) is deprecated in favor of replace(s::AbstractString, pat => r; [count]) ([deprecate replace(s::String, pat, r, n) to replace(s, pat=>r, count=n) #25165]). Moreover, count cannot be negative anymore (use typemax(Int) instead ([make replace with count=0 a no-op #22325]).

• skipchars(io::IO, predicate; linecomment=nothing) is deprecated in favor of skipchars(predicate, io::IO; linecomment=nothing) ([change skipchars(io, predicate) to skipchars(predicate, io) #25667]).

• The method String(io::IOBuffer) is deprecated to String(take!(copy(io))) ([deprecate String(::IOBuffer) #21438]).

• The function readstring is deprecated in favor of read(io, String) ([deprecate readstring to read(io, String) #22793])

• Base.cpad has been removed; use an appropriate combination of rpad and lpad instead ([deprecate cpad #23187]).

• num2hex and hex2num have been deprecated in favor of reinterpret combined with parse/hex ([Deprecate hex2num and num2hex #22088]).

• is_assigned_char and normalize_string have been renamed to isassigned and normalize, and moved to the new Unicode standard library module. graphemes has also been moved to that module ([Move Unicode-related functions to new Unicode stdlib package #25021]).

• ismatch(regex, str) has been deprecated in favor of contains(str, regex) ([Clean up search and find API #24673]).

• matchall has been deprecated in favor of collect(m.match for m in eachmatch(r, s)) ([Deprecate matchall #26071]).

• isupper, islower, ucfirst and lcfirst have been deprecated in favor of isuppercase, islowercase, uppercasefirst and lowercasefirst, respectively ([Rename isupper, islower, ucfirst and lcfirst #26442]).

Type

• The keyword immutable is fully deprecated to struct, and type is fully deprecated to mutable struct ([crazy idea: change the type keyword #19157], [use abstract|primitive type, struct, mutable struct for type definitions #20418]).

• isleaftype is deprecated in favor of the simpler predicates isconcretetype and isdispatchtuple. Concrete types are those that might equal typeof(x) for some x; isleaftype included some types for which this is not true. Those are now categorized more precisely as "dispatch tuple types" and "!has_free_typevars" (not exported). ([Rename isleaftype #17086], [kill isleaftype #25496])

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I almost think it would be a good idea if each item was tagged permanently, to allow for searching/selection, and so on...

[StefanKarpinski]

Let's do the tidying step first, but I agree that persistent tagging would be good too.

[JeffBezanson]

Agreed, NEWS needs a lot of editing and tidying at this point. We need to merge a few more PRs first though. Unfortunately if we do tagging, there needs to be a "misc" tag. For example, tic/toc, workspace, and EnvHash don't have anything meaningful in common.

[cormullion]

The “env” subsection could be renamed “general/misc”; it started out as “general Julia/environment” anyway and #env was quicker to type... 😀 Eventually it should be done properly...

[StefanKarpinski]

Is there anything to be done here?

[cormullion]

I think you can close this. Perhaps by the time the next huge release starts to loom we can explore some finer-grained ways of organizing hundreds of items. But that's some way off, I'm guessing... :)