Bert has pointed out to me that the R definition of "deprecated" is
considerably more draconian than that in most other systems:

   ? Deprecated
   "These functions are provided for compatibility with older versions
    of *R* only, and may be defunct as soon as the next release."

I would certainly not suggest that a function like tapply be deprecated by
that definition -- it appears in too much code, too many tutorials, too many
textbooks.

I was thinking of a much kinder, gentler form of deprecation, which is
simply that the documentation say "This function is deprecated; for similar
functionality, see the XXX function" with no threat that the function will
disappear in the next version.

            -s

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