$q.when should be deprecated

[basslagter]

Since Angular 1.4.1 there is a new (more consistent) method $q.resolve that does the exact same thing. I think it might be a good idea to deprecate the $q.when method and remove it in a future release.

[Narretz]

We are not really removing features in the 1.x branch, so deprecation is a bit meaningless, but we can update the docs to recommend using $q.resolve instead of $q.when.

[tonyfinn]

The docs currently state:

resolve(value, [successCallback], [errorCallback], [progressCallback]);

Alias of when to maintain naming consistency with ES6.

This seems to be a reversal of what's currently recommended? https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/service/$q

[aciccarello]

The .resolve alias doesn't really change the size of angular in any significant way so removing .when wouldn't change much. I do agree that the docs should recommend resolve.

[gkalpak]

If someone wants to change all instances of $q.when() in the docs with $q.resolve() and submit a PR, I'd be happy to take a look.