Re: [boost] Should we still be testing GCC 2.95.3?

From: Roger Leigh (rleigh_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-01-09 07:11:01

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Martin Wille <mw8329_at_[hidden]> writes:

> Vladimir Prus wrote:
>
>> Not that I care about 2.95 either, but I think the reasoning in this thread is 
>> a bit faulty. Developers just say "it's too old and non-conforming". But who 
>> knows what's used in practice, especially outside of bleeding-edge Linux 
>> distros?
>
> Even conservative distributions like Debian use gcc 3 now.

Just to qualify this:

- - Debian unstable is using GCC 4.0.3, and has been using GCC 4.0.x as
  the default compiler for the past six months (previously 3.3.x).
- - Debian stable is using GCC 3.3.5, but GCC 3.4.3 is also available.

Debian switched to GCC 3.2 as the default compiler in Jan 2003, so we
haven't been using GCC 2.95/GCC3.0 for three years.  I doubt you'll
find any current GNU/Linux distribution, either stable or development
release, which used GCC 2.95 as the default system compiler for the
last two years at least.

Reading mailing lists and usenet, the only people who are still
dependent upon GCC 2.95 are typically proprietary software vendors who
are stuck with it for ABI reasons, and rarely the odd person who finds
a regression in a newer GCC, but didn't bother reporting it, and lazy
people who couldn't be bothered to upgrade.  Those using it purely for
ABI stability will generally never move to a newer GCC or libstdc++,
or even upgrade any of the system libraries, so I wouldn't treat them
too seriously for ongoing development.

Regards,
Roger

- -- 
Roger Leigh
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