[Boost-users] Removing all support for Visual C++ 7.0, GCC 3.2 and other old compilers

Subject: [Boost-users] Removing all support for Visual C++ 7.0, GCC 3.2 and other old compilers
From: Daniel James (daniel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-08-05 15:58:28

Hello all,

There has been some discussion on the development list about dropping
all support for old C++ compilers. This will allow us to remove a lot of
workarounds and simplify the code but before doing so it's a good idea
to find out if anyone is still using them. Using boost with these
compilers will cause a compile error in the config library (you can work
round that using a custom configuration, but it's unlikely you'll be
able to get much to work). The currently proposed versions for removing
support are:

    Digital Mars 8.40 and earlier
    Visual C++ 7.0 and earlier
    GCC 3.2 and earlier
    Intel C++ 5.0 and earlier

Which is, I think, a very cautious list. There's also a good chance that
we might want to remove support for Borland C++ 5.x. Is there anyone
still using those compilers?

Just to be clear, this doesn't mean we'll be fully supporting all
compilers later than these. Old compilers such as Visual C++ 7.1 and gcc
3.4 won't have a config error and we won't deliberately remove support,
but support will be patchy. Many libraries (especially new ones) don't
support those compilers, and we also don't have any formal testing for
them, so if a new change breaks something, it might not be noticed.

If you are still using compilers which are a little more recent than the
ones listed above, it might still be worth mentioning in case we
consider removing support for them in the future.

Thanks in advance for any response,

Daniel James