Which gcc is the most stable today ?

[Joe Buck]

On Tue, Dec 09, 2003 at 09:59:29PM -0800, Jim Wilson wrote:
> The best compiler to use is often the compiler that came with the OS, 
> which would be the Red Hat gcc-2.96 in your case.

For C, this is true (the OS's compiler is fine); however, for C++, I would
strongly urge that no 2.x release be used for new development.  Lack of a
proper std namespace is a substantial issue, and you'll pay substantial
costs down the road if you proceed to whack out a lot of nonstandard,
broken code that 2.96 will accept but no other compiler will.

2.95.x and Red Hat's 2.96 do have a mechanism to fake the existence of
a std namespace, which allows many standard programs to compile.  This
means that it can work to develop code that runs on 2.96, but you also
need to be sure that it builds with a proper C++ compiler.