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Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

cppstat.dev

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Re: Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

#21

How did you collect this information? Manually by checking all compilers? By writing tests? By parsing compilers documentation?

Hi, I got the initial information from the cppreference compiler support site, then verified with each compiler vendors support tables and updated the information accordingly.

Then I wrote a bot that watches all known (and most importantly, reliable) sources for changes, that then notifies me. The data itself is kept in very simple yaml files. So whenever something changes, I verify and update the info accordingly (The site itself is then regenerated and uploaded automatically).

For features that are not fully implemented yet, or where the vendor does not provide any information (e.g. Apple's conformance table), I set up a conformance test suite on my machine that runs most of these across all toolchains.

Please note that I won't be the only person that maintains this site. I'm in the process of open-sourcing and automating most of it, so that everyone can contribute via GitHub. It's just that keeping up with C++ is part of my job, and also a personal interest of mine. So I do this as a "labour of love".

Re: Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

#22

Neat tool, but I noticed it shows that modules are mostly supported when they are at best partially supported. You can double check with the famous "Are we modules yet?" website.

Hi, thanks. I agree, modules support is kind of there, but not really. I think we could only go by what the compiler vendors state, and add some notes about what's missing.

Re: Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

#23

How do you see someone using this page? Feature names tend not to be very approachable. They often use very precise terminology or refer to papers with names that are targeted for a very in-the-know population. As an example, one of the features listed is '`constexpr` `std::shared_ptr` and friends'. You seem to have a search that can cope with backticks but this feature doesn't show up if I search for 'constexpr shar…

Hi, I first designed this site as a way for C++ developers to quickly look up support for particular features (as you've described, in isolation). But in the long run, I think we can extract much more meaning out of these numbers, which is why I added the conformance overview as a first test candidate.

As for feature names: I agree that the paper titles tend to be very technical / niche. However, I didn't want to distort them and rename them, since the site is targeted at the in-the-know population you've mentioned. Do you have an idea how this could be improved?

Regarding the search: This is something I'm working on improving, so that coarse searches like "constexp sharedptr" would correctly yield the constexpr std::shared_ptr proposal.

Re: Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

#24
post #17

For reference here is the cppreference page the OP is trying to improve: https://cppreference.com/w/cpp/compiler_support.html Personally I am not not sure the live search on this new page saves me time, but perhaps if you added the ability to only show missing features it could be useful. For example if I could pick that I am interested in c++23 and earlier and that I use gcc-14 and clang-16 it should list the featur…

Hi, the live search is for developers that want to quickly look up the support for a particular feature. The "missing features" feature and filtering by compiler versions is something I'm currently working on. Any suggestions are welcome, and thanks for your feedback.

Re: Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

#25
post #18

Nice! Just curious about one aspect: how much demand is there for C++ nowadays for new projects and what is the anticipated demand mid to long term [5+ years]? Asking as I am seriously considering if it would be a good idea to transition to C++ development (professionally, not as a hobby). Wondering if it would make sense from the POV of projected/anticipated future demand, job security and salaries ( VERY important)…

If you care about job security and salary, I recommend specializing in maintaining COBOL legacy codebases for the financial services sector. There are not enough oldtimers alive to do it, and the younger guys refuse to learn it. That drove up the hourly salaries enormously.

I am non-ironically considering this as I probably have double-digit organizations within a radius of 10 miles that probably still have core systems in production written in COBOL.

Re: Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

#27
post #18

Nice! Just curious about one aspect: how much demand is there for C++ nowadays for new projects and what is the anticipated demand mid to long term [5+ years]? Asking as I am seriously considering if it would be a good idea to transition to C++ development (professionally, not as a hobby). Wondering if it would make sense from the POV of projected/anticipated future demand, job security and salaries ( VERY important)…

If you care about job security and salary, I recommend specializing in maintaining COBOL legacy codebases for the financial services sector. There are not enough oldtimers alive to do it, and the younger guys refuse to learn it. That drove up the hourly salaries enormously.

What about your sanity

Re: Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

#28

Very neat website! But it also really shows that C++ is bloated to hell

You have to acknowledge that every feature in C++ (including the most insane ones) are well justified with real-life use cases in the industry. It is what it is. People who don't like it are using Go/Rust where it makes sense.

Re: Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

#29

Nice! Just curious about one aspect: how much demand is there for C++ nowadays for new projects and what is the anticipated demand mid to long term [5+ years]? Asking as I am seriously considering if it would be a good idea to transition to C++ development (professionally, not as a hobby). Wondering if it would make sense from the POV of projected/anticipated future demand, job security and salaries ( VERY important)…

Plenty, because despite the noise around the alternatives, even those alternatives are built with help of GCC and LLVM, written in C++ and aren't getting any rewrite short term.

Then there are whole industries where only C, C++ and Assembly matter, including standards, so it will take a while for new contenders to be taken seriously on such industries.

Re: Show HN: C++ Compiler Support Page

#30
post #29

Nice! Just curious about one aspect: how much demand is there for C++ nowadays for new projects and what is the anticipated demand mid to long term [5+ years]? Asking as I am seriously considering if it would be a good idea to transition to C++ development (professionally, not as a hobby). Wondering if it would make sense from the POV of projected/anticipated future demand, job security and salaries ( VERY important)…

Plenty, because despite the noise around the alternatives, even those alternatives are built with help of GCC and LLVM, written in C++ and aren't getting any rewrite short term. Then there are whole industries where only C, C++ and Assembly matter, including standards, so it will take a while for new contenders to be taken seriously on such industries.

gcc and LLVM being written in C++ is ortogonal to the demand for new projects to use C++.
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