Deprecation announces that an existing interface or field will be removed later, giving users, integrations, and teammates time to adapt. In Django migrations, it keeps intermediate database states alive instead of breaking production systems immediately. section 10.2
A practical deprecation workflow is:
- Add the replacement field or interface while retaining the old one. section 10.2
- Copy or transform existing data into the replacement, then keep both versions consistent when necessary. section 10.2
- Announce the removal date and verify that dependent code and integrations are ready. section 10.2
- Remove the deprecated field only after the transition period has ended. section 10.2
Renaming Promoter names
A Promoter model can introduce common_name and full_name while retaining first_name and last_name. A data migration fills the new fields; later migrations remove the deprecated fields after API consumers and direct database users have caught up.
