C++11 in KDevelop 4.6

[Milian Wolff]

On Thursday 22 November 2012 09:17:18 Andreas Pakulat wrote:
> Hi,

<snip>

> >> Using
> >> it where it makes sense and providing a fallback like Qt does is a
> >> much better approach for an open source project that lags developers
> >> anyway. Then again, having not used any C++11 features so far, I'm not
> >> even half as excited about it as everyone else seems to be :)
> > 
> > Why do you think will we get less developers when we complicate things?
> 
> Because you lower the barrier of entry, you do not have to require the
> new users to provide the fallbacks.

My sentence was wrong, I meant:

"Why do you think will we get less developers when we *simplify* things?".

Since, personally, I find it simpler to write "constexpr" and thus following a 
portable standard syntax that is documented in a lot of places, instead of 
writing "Q_DECL_CONSTEXPR" which only works in applications that use Qt 4.8+. 
Same for other language features.

> > Imo
> > writing constexpr is much easier and straight forward compared to going
> > through the Q_CONSTEXPR indirection. Also, don't you think we become more
> > interesting for new developers by offering them to use C++11 in our code
> > base?
> I did not use either so far so I have no clue which one is easier.


> And
> more interesting for new developers requires those developers to be
> able to build kdevelop with their environment. And by limiting the
> number of compilers than can build kdevelop you're making the chances
> of overlap between the two smaller.

This is of course a very valid point. I'm about to write a blog post and some 
emails to other mailing lists, to get more input. I think if we can get a 
clear overview of what versions of which platform come with a new-enough 
compiler, we should be able to form a good decision.

> Anyway, I just wanted to raise some points that I think should not be
> forgotten just because the main developer run a bleeding edge linux
> system that can handle all the new stuff already. Maybe it really is
> time to try this out and see how it works out, you'll probably notice
> rather sooner than later when people complain about non-compiling code
> because their gcc is a bit older. So you have a chance of adjusting
> your intended way in case requiring C++11 features turns out to be a
> problem before all the codebase makes use of those features.

Yes, good point again. But before changing code, I'll ask for some more 
feedback (see above).

Many thanks for your input Andreas!
-- 
Milian Wolff
mail at milianw.de
http://milianw.de
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