From: swarsmatt AT aol DOT com (SWars Matt)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: djgpp c++
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Message-ID: <1998090820325200.QAA14889@ladder03.news.aol.com>
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Date: 8 Sep 1998 20:32:52 GMT
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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"Simon Jefford" <sjeffird AT bigfoot DOT com> wrote:
>How much does the newest gcc adhere to "standard" c++, i.e. the latest draft
>standard?

In case you didn't know, the ISO vote approved the standard. There are just
some technicalities now.

>Apologies if this is a FAQ but I couldn't find the answer in there.
>

gcc's standard support is fairly good... as with basically any compiler for DOS
or Windows, it lacks features (see the recent thread on comp.std.c++).
Namespaces are missing (but you can use std::), and things like partial
template specialization aren't there. Overall, the support isn't bad. I'd say
templates are better than average, and the STL is present.
If you wouldn't mind a Windows compiler rather than a DOS compiler, you could
get Cygwin32 and egcs 1.1, which has very good standard support. Windows
console programs are basically the same as DOS programs, except that you can't
use graphics. You can write Windows GUI programs with Cygwin32, but you won't
have nice (well, part of the time they're nice, in places they're poorly
designed) libraries like MFC and ATL that you get if you buy a Microsoft
compiler.
So, what about the Microsoft compilers? I don't have VC++ 6 yet, so I can't
really tell you about it, except that I know it has improved template support
(e.g. member templates). I don't think it matches gcc's template support yet,
but I'm not sure. VC++ 5 supports namespaces, exceptions, and (to a lesser
degree than gcc) templates, and it has the STL. (Yes, I know some people here
hate Microsoft, but VC++ isn't really all that bad. It makes creating the kind
of Windows UI people expect easy, and there's nice database libraries also.)
I've probably rambled off topic but I wanted to give you some idea of what your
options are (hopefully over the next year or so there will be a big improvement
in compilers, since we really do have a standard now).
____________________________________________
Matt Reece

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