[llvm-dev] [RFC] Increase minimum supported GCC version for building LLVM to 4.8

[Renato Golin via llvm-dev]

On 17 October 2016 at 14:56, Teresa Johnson via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> Hi Justin,
>
> Wanted to follow up to see if Danny's response or the other responses
> addressed your concerns.
>
> Rather than specific new features in gcc 4.8+, it is more an issue of 4.7
> being stale, as evidenced by some of the issues reported here and in the
> thread I pointed to, and 4.8 being the version shipped with Linux distros.
> Gcc is currently at 6.X, so 4.7 is quite a few major releases ago (even
> taking into account the change in Gcc major release version numbering).
>

To complement Danny's response:

> Testing with 4.7 would actually require people go and install non-default
compilers for their long term supported distros in the buildbots, etc
(that's a pain point right there).

This is the strongest reason why we want to move to 4.8: because we're
testing it heavily, no one has been testing 4.7 for a long time, and it
would take a non-trivial amount of effort to start and continue testing 4.7.

I think we need to turn the question around: Given the high costs involved,
is there such a strong need to retain 4.7 compatibility?

cheers,
--renato
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