[p4] Branch deprecation procedure?

[Marc Wensauer]

We're about to deprecate our first branch (i.e.: it's no longer needed),
and I'd like to know what procedures you follow when deprecating a
branch.

So far, I think the following are in order:
* Delete the branch spec (we can always recover it from the spec depot)
* Delete the corresponding template client workspace
* Delete the corresponding user's client workspaces (perhaps a little
controversial?)

Now as far as the material on the branch itself, I see these options
ahead of me:
1) Do nothing -- leave the branch there.
2) Add an entry to the protections table to mark it read-only
3) Delete (p4 delete) the branch

I don't like #1 because it leaves a folder around that over time, will
add to the noise of obsoleted branch folders when browsing the depot.

Option #2 sounds interesting as it will essentially hide it, but I worry
about doing this for every branch that ends up deprecated -- if the
protections table grows large, it can negatively impact performance.

Option #3 sounds somewhat drastic, but still recoverable.

I suppose a variant of option #2 is to structure the protections table
to only allow write-access to the active branches, leaving by default
anything else there read-only.

I'd appreciate hearing how you deal with obsoleted branches.  Thanks for
your advice,
-Marc