Re: Raising our compiler requirements for 9.6

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:10 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> So far this thread is all about the costs of desupporting compilers
>> that don't have these features, and you're making a good argument
>> (that I think we all agree with) that the cost is small. But you
>> haven't really said what the benefits are.
>
> I made the same remark with respect to varargs macros, and I continue
> to think that the cost-benefit ratio there is pretty marginal.
>
> However, I do think that there's a case to be made for adopting static
> inline. The INCLUDE_DEFINITIONS dance is very inconvenient, so it
> discourages people from using static inlines over macros, even in cases
> where the macro approach is pretty evil (usually, because of multiple-
> evaluation hazards). If we allowed static inlines then we could work
> towards having a safer coding standard along the lines of "thou shalt
> not write macros that evaluate their arguments more than once".
> So the benefits here are easier development and less risk of bugs.
> On the other side of the ledger, the costs are pretty minimal; we will
> not actually break any platforms, at worst we'll make them unpleasant
> to develop on because of lots of warning messages. We have some platforms
> like that already, and it's not been a huge problem.

OK, so do we want to rip out all instances of the static inline dance
in favor of more straightforward coding? Do we then shut pandemelon
and any other affected buildfarm members down as unsupported, or what?

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company