Doesn't removing features break backward compatibility?
My favorite C++ library is Qt; they never remove public API for that reason. In Qt world, we update regularly to get the bug fixes and other features. Last thing I want to do is port my code to some other new API to update the library.
If it's a feature that has made it into the std/Boost libraries, we'll be talking atomic utility functions which are being removed, in favour of calling the std/Boost ones. Not actual API-level features.
My favorite C++ library is Qt; they never remove public API for that reason. In Qt world, we update regularly to get the bug fixes and other features. Last thing I want to do is port my code to some other new API to update the library.