Akim Demaille <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > but on the other hand we need to be cognizant of the wide variety > > of C++ compilers in practical use today, not all of which strictly > > conform to the latest standard. > > 10 years old!?! Then I'd like to know how old was that compiler.
But the latest C++ standard is C++03, which is only two years old. There were a lot of changes in C++03. An unofficial list of changes contains over 300 pages (see <http://www.acceleratedcpp.com/authors/koenig/c++std/revisions.pdf>) and I wouldn't be surprised if many currently-used implementations still fail to conform. As far as I can tell the GCC 4.0.2 manual doesn't even address this issue, which leads me to suspect that the latest version of GCC doesn't conform to the latest C++ standard. If you code to the intersection of C++98 and C++03 I guess you have a stronger argument (though C++98 is only seven years old, not ten....). I think we're pretty much in agreement, though. Write to the standard, and don't worry about nonstandard compilers unless it turns into a real problem in practice. And warnings from buggy compilers don't count as real problems.
