Silk touch Shears don't lose durability when mining grass, ice, etc.

Cannot replicate, silk-touch shears lost durability on usage. Are you sure you're not on creative?

Did you test on Grass and Ice?

Could be my mistake, I will double check when I get home.

Ah, my mistake, I tested it on tall grass. Trying it on ice and grass blocks replicate the behavior you mentioned.

I wouldn't say it (a silk-touch shear) is far superior to a silk-touch pickaxe, compared to a silk-touch iron or diamond one which can return stone and any ores, where a shear cannot. Nevertheless, it is a bug, like the reporter has said.

Video Proof: http://youtu.be/Tm09yoCcxKo

I didn't realize til after the video that I didn't check ice. Both the silk-touch shears and regular shears do not take damage from breaking ice.

Operating System: Windows 7
Java Version: 7u11
Minecraft Version: 13w03a

Confirmed to still occur in 13w04a.

Don't worry, you'll be able to get cobwebs again in the next snapshot: MC-93001

Don't know what to think about this... Before cobweb was something special, since you don't need silk touch book, it's... meh.

This is a freaking awful solution to this bug. For a start, what about all the people who already have silk touch shears? Not well thought out at all.

I wish I had never posted this issue.

This is a freaking awful solution to this bug. For a start, what about all the people who already have silk touch shears? Not well thought out at all.

Just making shears lose durability when breaking all blocks was enough to fix this, except for cobweb that alone makes it better to put Silk Touch on a diamond tool for general use instead. People with Silk Touch shears left from 1.8 don't matter much since those shears will lose durability and break soon enough.

Removing the need to get a Silk Touch book to make Silk Touch shears to get cobwebs is just a bonus, IMO. Slightly disappointing that 15w47b has unobtainable cobwebs that will be fixed in 15w47c/15w48a/whatever instead of just fixing that in 15w47b too (and makes me wonder if they're doing something more complicated than just making them obtainable with ordinary shears), but oh well.

"instead of just fixing that in 15w47b"
An update is a new release, a new release gets a new version string.

Unless you meant at the same time as the removal, in which case it simply being overlooked is likely. Remember that snapshots are not professional releases, are not meant for serious gameplay, and have rapid changes.