Re: sync.m

[Nicola Pero]

> We should not sacrifice new features or readability for the sake of
> holding on to older architectures and compilers.
>
> Also, the use of non-c99 standards does hinder contributions since we
> constantly expect people who don't have access to c99 based compilers
> to change their code to conform to c89.

I  think we should have a clear, explicit and unemotional support/ 
compatibility strategy.  :-)

As GCC 2.95.3 was released in March 16, 2001, it may make sense to no  
longer support it.
Or maybe it does.  I vote for supporting it.

Anyway the question really is - what is the oldest GCC that we support  
if it's not 2.95.3 ?

3.0.4 (released February 20, 2002) ?

Just mentioning c99 doesn't seem to help that much since IIRC no  
version of GCC
actually implements all of c99 anyway.  I actually am not really sure  
what C99 features,
added after 2.95, we really need.


> > > Nobody is breaking things gratuitously.  The c99isms slip in to  
> > > code simply because all modern compilers support them, and don't  
> > > warn you that older compilers won't.  Most people use them  
> > > habitually (locality of declaration of variables is particularly  
> > > good for code readability for instance) and simply won't notice  
> > > that they have used them.

We can use -Wdeclaration-after-statement to get a post-2.95 GCC warn  
you when you locally declare variables without starting a { } block.
Really not a problem - it's easy enough to add it to gnustep-base and  
gnustep-gui.

Thanks