[Geany-Devel] Lets move to C99

[Dimitar Zhekov]

On Sat, 17 Aug 2013 02:19:17 -0700
Matthew Brush <mbrush at codebrainz.ca> wrote:

> >> Up till now we've tried to stay compatible with ANSI C89 because
> >> of GTK+-stack doing so (unless I missed the real reason?).
> >>
> >> I propose we update to allowing C99 for the following reasons:
> >>
> >> [...]

IMHO, Colomban summed up pretty well why there's no compelling reason
to adopt C99. My 2 euro-cents:

1. Code with gboolean and bool, as well as g_ and non-g_ function
versions, would be ugly. So, if we are to move, we'd better upgdate
everything at once. Though it won't be very nice to have glib/gtk+
callbacks documented as "... gboolean something ...", but implemented
with "bool".

2. If you think that everyone who completed university in the last 14
years uses C99, that's not quite the case. There were years of time lag
before all compilers implemented it, and there would be an even larger
lag until the programs started before the stable C99 implementation are
re-written or obsoleted - if ever. The business is conservative, and
does not like to spend money for nothing. On that note, let's cheer for
all the programmers using MSVC, pretty much the standard C/C++ compiler
for Windows: VS moved "closer" to C99! A month ago, that is. :)

-- 
E-gards: Jimmy