Re: templated bitwise operators

[Robert T. Short]

On 05/25/2012 08:58 AM, Michael D. Godfrey wrote:
> On 5/25/12 4:51 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> > What's the earliest gcc version we're targetting? Is it still 4.1 or
> > thereabouts? I can't wait to use C++11 features. I'm hoping next year
> > we can start doing that.
> >
> > - Jordi G. H.
> I think that as long as Redhat Enterprise 5 is in fairly wide
> use 4.2.1 will still need support.  RHEL 6 is the current release,
> but many users find it a big hurdle to switch. Redhat does not advise
> attempting an upgrade.  Only a fresh install is reliable.  This does
> not help the migration.  Also, in an environment where there are
> multiple systems mixing 5 and 6 seems to cause problems.
>
> Sad:-(
>
> mdg
The following is just a personal opinion and preference.  I think we 
should be very careful with using tools that are too far ahead of their 
time.  In particular, I think we should attempt to use features 
available with debian stable unless there is a powerful reason not to.

The reason I say this is that when a feature is used from, say, debian 
testing a whole series of general stability problems arise totally 
unrelated to octave.  Since I depend on my machine to make a living I 
really begrudge time spent tracking down problems that are introduced by 
a buggy version of some software or by changes introduced in a package 
that I am familiar with.  Updating to new versions of debian at release 
time is plenty often enough to deal with these problems.

That said, I don't think we should make this a strict *rule*, but a 
general guideline.

Just my opinion.

Bob