which compilers do we want to support with KDE 4 ?

[Nicolas Goutte]

On Saturday 21 January 2006 12:58, Guillaume Laurent wrote:
> On Saturday 21 January 2006 11:58, Nicolas Goutte wrote:
> > On Saturday 21 January 2006 11:32, Alexander Neundorf wrote:
> > > Do we want to support gcc < 3.4 for KDE 4 ?
> >
> > The higher you put the limit the lesser developers you will get. (And it
> > is not that we have plenty of developers everywhere in KDE.)
>

> It's not that obvious.  Upgrading one's compiler is a one-shot thing which
> most distributions handle rather well.

Sure, I can only compare. Switching from CVS to SVN was also supposed to be 
very easy, however KDE lost many language translations... so how many 
translations (at least of documentation) are you ready to lose by forcing 
gcc4?

Sure if you have a flat-rated high-band Internet connection, you can update 
all you want. Sure if you are professional developer, you will get all 
updates that you want too.

(I do not care about my case. I can't compile KDE4 now, so it makes little 
difference if gcc 3.3.1 is supported or not. If not, there is surely plenty 
for me to do outside C++. (Just too bad for KBabel.))

> On the other hand, supporting "old"
> compilers means a lot of wasted developer time, and in a continuous way.

Well, if you lose developers, you lose their time *entirely*.

> Also, by the time KDE4 comes out, gcc < 3.4 will be *much* less used than
> it is today.

Just a comment: as far as known, KDE is suppose to compile on non-gcc 
compilers too, starting with MSVC for Windows. Also there is a wish to 
compile on Linux with icc. Are those all gcc4 (or at least gcc 3,4) compliant 
too?

Have a nice day!