Cygwin boost comes with new g++ which seems to break my code... why?

Question

Setup: I installed Cygwin with the GNU programming lineup (gcc, g++, make, and gdb) and successfully compiled an ran a program that I was working on. Then I decided to install boost into Cygwin because I will need to use typical boost stuff as my program develops. So, using the Cywing setup.exe, I installed boost. After this, the program that I had just successfully compiled and ran no longer worked. (And recall that it didn't depend upon boost.)

I found out that when boost installed, it also installed a new compiler, g++-4.exe, whereas previously I had been using r++-3.exe. Boost had also symbolically linked g++.exe to the new compiler. After I changed back the symbolic link my old program compiled correctly.

Is there any reason that I should be using g++-4 rather than g++-3?

Answer 1

g++ 3 is very old and the gcc community has long since dropped maintenance of it. (GCC 4.3 is currently the oldest maintained release series.) There have been lots of language conformance improvements in newer versions (both in accepting valid code and rejecting bad code), so you'll have an easier time going forward if you bite the bullet now. You can check the release notes for each series (e.g. for 4.0) for explanations of these improvements and the code changes they might require. Personally, I find programming much more enjoyable when I can reason about programs according to a precise language specification, and only rarely be forced to understand the quirks of a particular compiler.

Also, Boost support for g++ 3 seems to be nearing an end, as Boost 1.44 considers GCC 3(.4.6) as an "additional test compiler" on only a single platform (RHEL). Boost development is linear (not branched), so you can find yourself in a situation where you need to upgrade to get bug fixes, but then find that your platform is no longer supported.