[Geany-Devel] Lets move to C99

[Matthew Brush]

On 13-08-16 04:40 AM, Nick Treleaven wrote:
> On 16/08/2013 10:25, Matthew Brush wrote:
>> On 13-08-16 01:28 AM, Frank Lanitz wrote:
>>> Am 2013-08-16 10:21, schrieb Matthew Brush:
>>>> On 13-08-16 01:18 AM, Frank Lanitz wrote:
>>>>> Am 2013-08-16 08:36, schrieb Lex Trotman:
>>>>>> In general I don't see any point in keeping compatibility with a
>>>>>> standard
>>>>>> as old as C89, what target (that we support) still needs that?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> IIRC this was due to on Solaris system and others C99 was not fully
>>>>> supported. Honestly I have no clue what's the current status at
>>>>> this as
>>>>> with upgrading Gtk-dependency in past we might have lost the
>>>>> C89-compat.
>>>>> already.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> AFAIK we and GTK+ still conform to strict C89 including recent GTK+3
>>>> updates, but I think C99 support in GCC (our main targeted compiler)
>>>> is quite robust for a long time on all targets where Geany is used
>>>> (presumably).
>>>
>>> There were some real old plattforms to keep on supporting running a gcc
>>> 2.9x ... IIRC Solaris 9.
>>>
>>> We have to check the *x-world beside of Linux I think here.
>>>
>>
>> IMO, if a platform can't support compiling C99 code using any type of
>> pre-historic GCC that supports it, then its package maintainers deserve
>> to (and likely do already) use cross-compilation and it's users won't
>> care either way.
>>
>> P.S. I'm not a package maintainer for pre-historic distro, so please
>> flame me if I pissed you off.
>
> Perhaps we could try asking if they still need ANSI-C on geany-users and
> maybe on the website news too.
>

Good idea, if no one objects, I'll ask on the users list whether anyone 
actually compiles Geany on such platforms (although I guess it's only a 
small subset of the actual user base).

P.S. Just a nitpick, the current ANSI C standard is C11, not C99 or 
C89/90 (Of course, I'm just being sarcastically pedantic for fun and 
know exactly what you meant[1] :)

Cheers,
Matthew Brush

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_C#C89_and_C90