Re: [htdig-dev] Re: gcc 3.1

[Gilles D. <gr...@sc...>]

According to Edward Avis:
> On Mon, 15 Apr 2002, Geoff Hutchison wrote:
> >>Another problem I found was the use of deprecated headers.  Instead of
> >><foo.h> newer compilers would prefer you to use <foo> and then access
> >>the 'std' namespace explicitly.
> >
> >Yes, and lots of people have older compilers that don't like the <foo>
> >notation.
> 
> Even today?  I didn't expect that.  But anyway, the actual bug is just
> with the configure script.  Whether to fix the configure bug by changing
> to newstyle headers everywhere is a separate decision - and obviously
> not as clear-cut as I thought.

Even today?  Does that mean that if tomorrow the standard changes again
we have to assume that 100% of our user base will immediately switch to
the new standard?  One of the most fundamental principles of software
portability is not to assume everyone's system is up to today's standards,
so you must maintain backwards compatibility!  Would it surprise you to
learn that I still regularly build ht://Dig with gcc version 2.7.2.1?
(It would surprise me if I was the only one using a compiler that old.)

The ".h" in header file names is a very well established, decades-old
standard that's not going to disappear overnight.  It's cool that newer
compilers make the .h optional, but that some of these compilers now
give warning messages, or even error messages, when the .h is there is,
in my opinion, a capricious and poorly thought-out deviation from this
established standard.

-- 
Gilles R. Detillieux              E-mail: <gr...@sc...>
Spinal Cord Research Centre       WWW:    http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/
Dept. Physiology, U. of Manitoba  Winnipeg, MB  R3E 3J7  (Canada)