c++, redux

[Brian Behlendorf <br...@hyperreal.org>]

A clarification.

>To: mozilla-general@mozilla.org
>From: Ramiro Estrugo <ra...@netscape.com>
>Newsgroups: netscape.public.mozilla.general
>Subject: Re: Source code - optimised assembler
>Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 15:22:42 -0800
>
>Mozilla runs on 20+ platforms with more coming soon to a theater near
>you.  The one with the crappiest c++ compiler determines the standard.
>
>Even in the platform specific front end code, portability is a BIG
>issue.  On mac there is powerpc/68k on windows win32/win16/nt3.51/etc on
>unix its a nightmare cause there are at least as many configurations as
>there are platforms.   Which might have different compilers.  For
>instance, MS does not support the win16 compiler any more.  On unix gcc
>has not been ported to all platforms (at least not to be usable).
>
>That means fancy c++ stuff like RTTI, exceptions, templates and other
>not so fancy stuff like static ctor/dtor, default arguments for non
>built-in types cannot be used unless you are prepared to write and
>maintain code specific to each compiler.  This is without even going
>into the nice BUGS a lot of the compiler have.
>
>Yes, in the future we will all live happily ever after coding to the c++
>spec, but to ship a product in this century we need to be careful about
>c++ wizardry no matter how impressive.  The cost is too high.
>
>-re

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"Optimism is a strategy for making                         brian@apache.org
a better future." - Noam Chomsky                        brian@hyperreal.org