-----Original Message----- From: Boost [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Edward Diener Sent: 06 September 2015 22:46 To: boost@lists.boost.org Subject: Re: [boost] Compiling with Clang 3.7.0 from windows
Also, what do we want to accomplish by using clang and mingw? Better error/warning reporting from clang? Something else?
1) It adds two more compilers to test Boost on Windows, other that just VC++. 2) Both gcc and clang are better C++ standard conforming compilers than VC++ has been. I trust what they find as C++ standard conformance errors more than I trust VC++. 3) The VC++ preprocessor remains "broken" still with VC++ 14 ( VS2015 ). It's impossible to write/test macro code, as I have done with VMD and Boost PP, without being able to check highly conformant preprocessor such as gcc and clang. Of course Boost Wave is also an enormous help. 4) I think VC++ has done an admirable job reporting complicated template misuse errors in its output, but both gcc and even more so clang are also first-rate in reporting such others. You can never have "enough" different ways at looking at template errors to discover what may be wrong in your template code.
Agree with all these objectives, but can I add one more aim that I feel is really quite important. Doxygen-syntax comments are a good way to document code so that Doxygen or some other tool can process it to produce C++ Reference documentation automatically. At present, many libraries use Doxygen (often with Quickbook) to do this. But Doxygen is not a compiler and its parsing, (though impressive for what it was designed C, FORTRAN and others) is often somewhat confused by the intensity of templating and meta-templating in many Boost libraries. An option to use the Clang compiler is under development and close to working - but that will require that one has a working Clang compiler. Paul --- Paul A. Bristow Prizet Farmhouse Kendal UK LA8 8AB +44 (0) 1539 561830