[LLVMdev] [cfe-dev] Reminder: 2.7 code freeze in 1.5 weeks

[Ted Kremenek]

On Feb 15, 2010, at 7:49 AM, Douglas Gregor wrote:

>> Hmm, wouldn't that speak against jamming this into 2.7 ?  Let 2.7 
>> go out and don't bark at it's C++ status. That gives you a full 
>> release-cycle to get C++ into some *REALLY* good state.
> 
> Where's the excitement in that? Another release cycle is 6 months away, and if past progress is any indication, we'll have gotten Clang C++ to the point where it "just works" for the vast majority of C++ programs [1]. At that point, it will also be 9 months after our first "self-host", which is an eternity in open-source time.
> 
> No, 2.7 is the right time-frame for the Clang C++ announcement: we're not done, but we have enough to show to gain attention and draw in contributors, and we have some momentum now from having just announced a successful self-host.

I agree with Doug.  Clang C++ support has reached the maturity where it is very interesting to the open source community.  That's not the same as advocating that people switch over to using it as their default C++ compiler.  I agree that we should make the distinction very clear.

Having general testing by early adopters (in a 2.7 release) will shake out a lot of the issues in Clang C++, making the 2.8 release all the more better.  Beyond correctness issues, we know there will be performance issues to address as well, and real users will help identify those as well.

In the 2.8 time frame, if I were a casual user considering using Clang for compiling my C++ projects, I'd have a lot more confidence in that release knowing that it had been tested by others.  Further, people who use LLVM+Clang to do interesting stuff will care very much about Clang C++, even though it is still a WIP.