Should i use the latest GCC version ( in general, and specifically today )

Question

I was wondering if it is safe to use the latest GCC version, or do people usually go a few versions back (and if so how many). Are there trusted versions which can be assumed to be (relatively) bug free, or can i safely assume (for non life saving programs) that the latest GCC version is safe to use?

EDIT:

By safe - i mean mainly bug free, i.e. in terms of execution.

Answer 1

On the normal host system, I would go with what is provided by the OS/distribution, and maybe install a few versions in parallel. On my macosx system gcc-4.2 (OSX standard), gcc-4.6.2, gcc-llvm (OSX standard) and gcc-HEAD installed. That way I can pretty easily try out things, update gcc-HEAD to have the bleeding edge, but continue to have working and supported versions for my day to day development.

In a commercial/work setting, I would recommend being very anal in writing down the version numbers used, and actually backup the whole compiler toolchain, so that you can come back to a working identical system later on if maintenance needs it. Nothing is more annoying than having a compiler change slightly in annoying ways (missing defines, etc...).

This is even more important for embedded development, so far that I actually save the compiler toolchain into git. A slight bump in version in gcc could mean either a horribly annoying compiler bug (those happen much more often on embedded platforms I have the impression), or a bump in size of for example 40 bytes, which could completely obliterate your project.

Answer 2

Better C++ 11 support is on the latest gcc version. You might to compile it yourself though Note that gcc 4.7 is almost ready for release, so, you might want to give it a try. I have done it quite often, with almost all gcc versions starting from 4, for the improved C++ standards compliance, and, quite often, gains in compilation time and improvements on the optimizer.

In general, it is a good idea to use the latest g++ compiler.

However, in a few occasions I have had problems with the libraries that I use. For example, the version 4.5 of g++ broke the version of boost::xpressive that I was using. Or better said, it revealed something broken in the library. Plus, the higher you go with g++, the more problems you will have trying to compile your code with other compilers, lagging on new features implementation.

My take on that is to yes, use the latest compiler version, and use the good things that the new standard has, because they make me more productive and a happier programmer. Then, if I have to port my code to another compiler, I just tweak the parts of the code that I need to, which at the end doesn't take that much time.

Answer 3

I tend to use the latest version, because it implements the latest features, fix bugs, but unfortunately introduce new bugs. Introduces bugs are usually on some weird corner cases, so I would assume it is safe to always use the latest version.

Answer 4

In the absence of specific requirements to the contrary, I tend to use whichever version of gcc is supplied by my (reasonably up-to-date) Linux distribution. This policy has worked pretty well for me so far.