[Development] RFC: handling of C++ feature test macros

[Thiago Macieira]

On Tuesday, 17 September 2019 16:05:34 PDT Giuseppe D'Angelo via Development 
wrote:
> While I agree that at the moment it has virtually never happened, it
> doesn't mean it couldn't happen in the future. Even today we have
> compilers such as MSVC with "living on the edge" compile flags
> (/c++latest). Our users can use those, and thus potentially trigger
> codepaths that on their specific compiler version are implemented in a
> pre-Standard way.
> 
> So, how academic (I think should I say paranoid...) do we want to be?

Marc's proposal is that we should accept that these things are rare and simply 
correct when they do happen. Since our code is tested with the currently 
latest versions of all compilers, we're fairly sure that any such macro works 
with the compilers that currently support the feature.

When a new compiler comes out with the feature, we may get compilation errors. 
Our users understand that we cannot test things that don't exist, so older 
versions can fail to compile on new compilers (or produce a lot of warnings). 
Issuing fixes is enough.

-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
  Software Architect - Intel System Software Products