[Vxl-maintainers] vcl_compiler.h cleanup

[Amitha P. <pe...@cs...>]

Folks,

I just committed a small clean up and documentation of
vcl_compiler.h. In particular, I wanted to making the naming of
various compilers consistent, and to make sure that each compiler is
identified uniquely. (Previously, GCC 3.4 would set both VCL_GCC_33
and VCL_GCC_34, IIRC.)

From the top of the new file:
// Naming scheme:
// If you have a compiler name XYZ, then
//     #define VCL_XYZ
// Each each major release, define a release number
//     #define VCL_XYZ_4
// Avoid using the marketing name for the release number, because it's
// harder to follow. For example, Microsoft Visual C++ .NET 2003 is
// better called Visual C++ 7.
// For each minor version, define the appropriate minor version number
//     #define VCL_XYZ_40
// If necessary, define the patchlevel too:
//     #define VCL_XYZ_401
//
// Make sure that if the minor version is defined, then the release
// number and the compiler name are also defined.

Based on this, I'd like to decprecate VCL_VC60, VCL_VC70, etc, and rename them VCL_VC_60, etc. Also, I'd like to replace
  #if VCL_DOTNET
with
  #if defined(VCL_VC_7) || defined(VCL_VC_8)

I think we should avoid generalizing excessively to compilers we don't
know about. A generalization already happens in that (future release)
VC 9 would be marked as VCL_VC_8 until someone adds it to
vcl_compiler, and that person can determine if VCL_VC_9 should be
added to the exception list or not. This generalization just assumes
that the latest version is similar to the previous release until we
know better.

Thoughts?

Amitha.