Crafting Better Source Code in C++

[Eljay Love-Jensen]

Hi everyone,

#define SOAPBOX

I've been asked this question several times about C++ (in particular, GCC's 
C++), and I thought I'd share my thoughts.

The GCC compiler has a suite of warnings which will point out dangerous or 
suspicious coding practices.  By and large, I feel that these GCC warnings 
are indicative of either bad code ("bugs"!  ~10% of the time), or poor 
coding practices (~90%).

In either case, I think it is a worthwhile endeavor to use GCC's warning 
facilities to help improve the source code, and improve the portability of 
the source code.

At a minimum, I suggest everyone ALWAYS use these flags:
-pedantic -Wall -W

Other flags are documented here:
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-3.3.3/gcc/Warning-Options.html

I use almost all the additional flags.  Call me ultra-pedantic.  I wish 
there was an -WALL switch, to enable all warnings (even the annoying ones 
which I disregard), just so I wouldn't have the creepy feeling I've missed one.

I have heard of people unhappy that there isn't a good GNU Lint++ for C++ 
code in general.  In my opinion, a good chunk of Lint++ facility is built 
right into the GCC compiler.  If only people would enable it.

Granted... Gimpel's PC-lint / FlexeLint software does an extensive analysis 
beyond what GCC has built in.  Gimpel's software has a different objective 
than GCC.

#undef SOAPBOX

Thanks,
--Eljay