Re: [C++] System Requirements

Ben Longbons
2013-12-16T20:09:37Z

On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> Perhaps you never tried to use outdated versions of GDB too seriously
> for too long. GDB constantly gets more and more useful features and
> solves more and more bugs, so using an old version is a PITA.
Well, I can state with absolute certainty that there are *some* bugs
in gdb that simply will not be fixed without relying on some subset of
C++11 features.

It's not that they couldn't theoretically be fixed otherwise, they
just wouldn't be detected. For a while I had to maintain two branches
of my own software, and I remember specifically backporting one fix to
the pre-C++11 stable branch for a problem that many users had noticed,
but which eluded bughunts until I used some C++11 stuff.

In some cases it is possible to hide the feature behind the
development mode check, in some cases it is not. GCC 4.3 and 4.4
introduce a lot of features that can't be used conditionally.

> It's
> not like GDB development aims only at supporting newer compiler
> versions, you know. Just look at the commit logs, and you will see.
I haven't been able to get the specific information I looked for as to
exactly which versions *are* supported and which have been for
previous releases.

>> Regardless of where we set the bounds, do you agree to the *concept*
>> of having two different modes?
>
> I don't. There's no reason to have that, and it certainly adds to the
> overhead.
I do strongly believe it is beneficial to keep the two modes very
similar, but with the specific differences I have in mind, it would be
rather unlikely to commit something that failed in one mode and worked
in the other.

-Ben