[Chandler-dev] Compiler versions

[Alec Flett]

Heikki Toivonen wrote:
> Andi Vajda wrote:
>   
>> My preference is neither. We should document which compilers are known
>> to work so that developers who want reliability know what to work with.
>>     
>
> I don't see how this could work. Any code change could cause the build
> to break under some previously "known to work" compiler.
>
>   
I also vote for neither.. this is a documentation and community issue, 
not a makefile issue. We should simply *document* the compilers we do 
support in the build instructions themselves, and then let people add 
wiki links for building on other compilers. If people are having trouble 
building there should be lots of documentation about potential problems 
and we should be welcoming their participation on the mailing list if 
they have questions. When their questions are answered, the 
documentation should be updated to reflect their new and different 
variety of problems they've encountered.

It sounds like your fear is that people will blindly build with the 
wrong compiler successfully and then be confused down the road when the 
build suddenly breaks for them? Sure, this situation sucks but I think 
if we have sufficient docs and an active mailing list & IRC then we can 
help them work through their issue.

I guess I don't see a reason to:
a) spew a warning that users will be trained to ignore after doing 2 or 
3 builds
b) prevent the user from building because they want to build on their 
"Novell SlackBuntuToo" distribution

This is the kind of situation that autoconf/configure was designed to 
deal with, I really wish we just used that.

Alec
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