Deprecate typing.Text

[AlexWaygood]

Feature or enhancement

The typing module has a huge API, and new features continue to be added in each version of Python. Deprecations should be done carefully and slowly, to minimise disruption for users, but we should nonetheless aim to shrink the API where features are no longer needed, so as to make the sheer size of the module less overwhelming for newcomers to Python typing.

Python 2.7 is now end-of-life, so typing.Text has no use anymore (its sole purpose was to provide backwards compatibility with Python 2). I propose that we should now deprecate typing.Text, with a view to eventually removing it.

[JelleZijlstra]

I agree on deprecating Text and removing it from examples, but I don't want to remove it for a long time: that just needlessly breaks previously working code.

To reduce cognitive load on readers of the typing module docs, we can eventually move it to a separate section about deprecated names and cover it only briefly.

[AlexWaygood]

I don't want to remove it for a long time: that just needlessly breaks previously working code.

We agree.

[Fidget-Spinner]

Please forgive my ignorance: I didn't even know typing.Text existed. I don't think many people still use this, so we can deprecate it (but like you mentioned, remove it a long long time later).

[JelleZijlstra]

It's pretty easy to miss :).

To be clear, by "a long time" I mean something like "wait a decade and then maybe start thinking about removing it". We shouldn't set a concrete removal timeline yet.

[AlexWaygood]

It's pretty easy to miss :).

It's definitely not a big maintenance burden or anything!