GCC Developers Look At Transitioning Their Codebase To C++11

Seven years after the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) developers began transitioning their codebase from C to C++, they are now discussing the prospects of adopting C++11 as their allowed C++ standard revision for developing this open-source compiler.

This past week the conversation over allowing C++11 code into the compiler code-base was brought up. So far there seems to be a lot of upstream developer interest in allowing C++11'isms into the GCC code-base. In fact, some have even expressed being open to allowing C++14.

If they move to C++11 as their base requirement for building GCC, that still allows GCC 5~6 to build it nicely given the compiler's longstanding good support for C++11. LLVM developers meanwhile have been working on shifting their codebase to C++14.

Among the C++11 features being sought after by GCC developers are the C++ memory model and atomic classes, for each loops, better multi-threading support, and other bits. There is, of course, some concern still of not over-using C++ code within the GCC code-base given its increased complexity for an already complex compiler code-base.

The C++11 upgrade is being discussed in two threads, here and here.