gcc and C++0x on Mac OS X

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 26 October 2010 04:00, Ben Abbott <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Oct 26, 2010, at 3:20 PM, Kai Habel wrote:

>> P.S. Is there a more recent gcc suite available from Apple/for
>> MacOS for you to test with?

> Unfortunately, I've not been successful mixing versions of gcc since
> libtool was added. Thus, to build with a different version of gcc,
> I'd have to rebuild all the dependencies. Which is a task I've not
> attempted before.

I'm a little worried about this. Apple is quite clearly trying to move
away from gcc. They stopped using gcc when it became GPLv3 and are
pouring all of their efforts in clang instead. I would like to be able
to start using C++0x constructs in Octave, but this is going to be
impossible with gcc on Mac OS X if you can't update it.

Is this an actual concern, or am I worried over nothing? How backwards
compatible should Octave's code remain? C++0x will mostly likely be
finalised by 2012, by the estimates I've seen, and gcc already
implements much of it. By contrast, clang is way behind. Many C++0x
features could clean up Octave code. Will we be able to use them?

- Jordi G. H.