I've been programming in C++ since cfront 1.0, and I am happy to say I've never written an exception specification or allowed one in code that I was responsible for. When they were proposed, I called Bjarne Stroustrup on the phone and cried, "Don't do it!" I gave all the reasons why they were a horrible idea. To my surprise, he said something like, "I know." When I asked why the feature-from-Hades was going into the spec, he said there was a Big Player whose "experts" resolutely insisted that it had to go into the spec or they would absolutely not sign off, period, end of discussion. If I ever knew who it was, I've forgotten.
I've been deprecating a long time. :-)
