Wrong dba view name

Question

I find no mention in the Reference manual (https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/server.112/e40402/toc.htm) of DBA_SNAPSHOTS
Yet ......
Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production
With the Automatic Storage Management option
SQL> edit
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  select owner,
  2         object_name,
  3         object_type
  4  from dba_objects
  5  where object_name LIKE 'DBA_SNAPSHO%'
  6* order by 1,2,3
SQL> /
OWNER      OBJECT_NAME                    OBJECT_TYPE
PUBLIC     DBA_SNAPSHOTS                  SYNONYM
PUBLIC     DBA_SNAPSHOT_LOGS              SYNONYM
PUBLIC     DBA_SNAPSHOT_LOG_FILTER_COLS   SYNONYM
PUBLIC     DBA_SNAPSHOT_REFRESH_TIMES     SYNONYM
SYS        DBA_SNAPSHOTS                  VIEW
SYS        DBA_SNAPSHOT_LOGS              VIEW
6 rows selected.
SQL>
I'm just sayin'  . . . .

Answer 1

Cjmurray-Oracle wrote:
The developer responsible for those views had the following response: "Snapshots is the old name for materialized views introduced in 8i. For materialized view information, please look at the DBA_MVIEWS view. I checked the Oracle doc and verified that  DBA_SNAPSHOTS and DBA_SNAPSHOT_LOGS views were documented in Oracle 8, 8i, 9i and removed in 9.2."
Then would it not make sense to put an entry to that effect in the docs:
=========================================================
DBA_SNAPSHOTS
DBA_SNAPSHOTS is the old name for materialized views introduced in 8i.  The view is still in the database but has been superseded by DBA_MVIEWS.  See also DBA_MVIEWS
=========================================================
I understand that this could (and probably is) now considered an undocumented feature (or undocumented artifact?).  It just seems odd that I stumbled across this view and could find no explanation at all.  Given that it is a public synonym, I didn't even have to be 'digging' to come across it.
Just out of curiosity, if it has been superseded, is it still maintained for backward compatibility?  When would something like that be finally removed from the database, vs. just removing any mention of it from the docs?