[pooma-dev] [RFC] Removing workarounds for pre-ISO C++ compilers

[Jeffrey D. Oldham]

Richard Guenther wrote:

> Jeffrey D. Oldham wrote:
>
>> Richard Guenther wrote:
>>
>>> Would there be any objections to the removal of the workarounds for 
>>> pre-ISO C++ compilers like
>>>
>>> Pretty much any up-to-date compiler handles these correctly today.  
>>> Also not all such uses are guarded by the workarounds and I lack a 
>>> dumb enough compiler to check their correct usage.
>>>
>>> Any thoughts?
>>>
>>> Richard.
>>
>>
>>
>> There are still a lot of gcc 2.95 and related compilers in use 
>> today.  I prefer to leave them but let them rot unless there is a 
>> compelling reason to remove them now.
>
>
> I see.  I'd remove them only to unclutter the source and maybe 
> increase maintainability if formally stating we require an ISO 
> conformant compiler.  Oh - we do so already:
>
> <quote README>
> This version incorporates other minor source code changes to support
> compilation using g++ version 3.1 and some improvements to POOMA
> Fields.  Compilation using g++ version 2.96 is no longer supported.
> g++ version 3.1 is freely available at http://gcc.gnu.org/.  POOMA has
> also been tested using KAI C++ 4.0e.
> </quote>
>
> Richard.

Good point.  Support for gcc 3.4 differs from support for gcc 3.x.y, x < 
4, because 3.4 will correctly parse some constructs that gcc 3.x.y does 
not.  What do you prefer we write in the README for a Pooma 2.5 
release?  That should drive our code changes.

Work on VSIPL++ demonstrates that some templated C++ code that gcc 3.4 
easily supports still breaks other compilers.  For example, IBM Visual 
Age 6 (xlc++) can have difficulty parsing with template arguments.  
Intel C++ 8.0 for IA64, which I believe is the descendant of KAI C++, 
has trouble with template functions defined outside template classes.

-- 
Jeffrey D. Oldham
oldham at codesourcery.com