Given that there is a current move to rationalize the bind placeholders, and potentially introduce deprecated definitions, would it worth introducing a boost deprecated marker that makes use of compiler support to notify the user that they are using such definitions? I recently recompiled a project with BOOST_FILESYSTEM_NO_DEPRECATED (for no particular reason, except perhaps for tr1 readiness) and I was surprised how many uses of the old native_file_string and boost::native tags were buried in the code-base. Personally, I think it would be useful to be notified (or nagged :-)) if I was using deprecated functionality; I don't examine every comment of every function, and after successful compilation/unit-test they are easily forgotten. I don't know the best, generic, way of achieving this, but a simple approach that should work with MSVC and gcc would be to have: #ifndef BOOST_NO_DEPRECATED_WARNINGS // Don't nag me, compiler # if [BUILDING_WITH_MSVC] # define BOOST_DEPRECATED __declspec(deprecated) # else if [BUILDING_WITH_GCC] # define BOOST_DEPRECATED __attribute__ ((deprecated)) # else if [BUILDING_WITH_acme] # define BOOST_DEPRECATED ... # end if #endif #ifndef BOOST_DEPRECATED // No compiler support, just a tag # define BOOST_DEPRECATED #end if Then usage is: BOOST_DEPRECATED void TheFunction(...); The intent here is clear, and uncluttered, but may not be flexible enough. For example, a compiler may use syntax that declares its deprecated tag after the definition (which gcc supports, and it is usually shown that way in the guidelines). In which case, I expect the whole definition would have to be wrapped up in the macro. Also, there may be a case for separating the deprecated tags for functions, variables, types, etc.. As an (untested) illustration: #ifndef BOOST_NO_DEPRECATED_WARNINGS # if [BUILDING_WITH_MSVC] # define BOOST_DEPRECATED_FUNCTION(_F_) __declspec(deprecated) _F_ # else if [BUILDING_WITH_GCC] # define BOOST_DEPRECATED_FUNCTION(_F_) _F_ __attribute__ ((deprecated)) # else if [BUILDING_WITH_acme] # define BOOST_DEPRECATED_FUNCTION(_F_) ... # define BOOST_DEPRECATED_VARIABLE(_V_) ... # define BOOST_DEPRECATED_TYPE(_T_) ... # end if #endif #ifndef BOOST_DEPRECATED_FUNCTION # define BOOST_DEPRECATED_FUNCTION(_F_) _F_ #end if #ifndef BOOST_DEPRECATED_VARIABLE // Some compilers may use different syntax for variables, if not, // use same as deprecated function tag # define BOOST_DEPRECATED_VARIABLE(_V_) BOOST_DEPRECATED_FUNCTION(_V_) #endif #ifndef BOOST_DEPRECATED_TYPE // As for variables.. # define BOOST_DEPRECATED_TYPE(_T_) BOOST_DEPRECATED_FUNCTION(_T_) #endif Usage example: class path { ... BOOST_DEPRECATED_FUNCTION(string_type native_file_string() const) { return file_string(); } ... }; This is noisier, and may be worse if parentheses/comma expansion work-arounds are required, but it's an example. Personally, I prefer the simple BOOST_DEPRECATED, but I don't have experience with other compilers to know if that would suffice. Even if no support is available, having a benign tag in the definition provides information at the least. Regards...