Compiler choice

From: Paul Baxter (paul_baxter_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-05-18 10:23:33

Apologies if this is a tad offtopic, but I wondered what the current
thoughts are on a 'compliant' C++ compiler for the PC.

I've all but given up on Visual C++ as there are just too many workarounds
needed.

I want one as a standards compliant test rather than having the last ounce
of optimisation.

So far my choices seem to be

Comeau (+ STLPort?)
Metrowerks (is 6.1(as used by Boost) available?)
GCC 2.9x/3.0 (will use this as a backup 2nd compiler anyway after its had a
shakedown for a few months)

Whilst Boost may shy away from actually recommending a compiler, I think its
time to start guiding people more towards the good implementations. Although
the test results posted for Boost do help, they are coloured by a huge
amount of workarounds for some compilers.

Maybe Boost should start distancing from some compilers. Sure the
practicalities of needing to support say MSVC are understandable there seems
to be too much bandwidth consumed in fixing compiler deficiencies.

One of the early goals of Boost was producing standard code. Are we at a
point with the various compilers where this can be encouraged more
forcefully and reduce the efforts in supporting bad implementations or do we
have to struggle on with broken compilers for several more years?

Paul Baxter