building POCO on AIX with brain-dead compilers

[marlowa]

Some brain-dead C++ compilation environments on AIX require that the use of preprocessor is confined to quite an old dialect, certainly not a C99 conformant one. Such systems are sadly still in use and relied on by commercial organisations. Sadly this means Poco will not build on them. This is because Poco uses C++ style comments on the end of preprocessor directives. In theory there is nothing wrong with this, it is the compilers that are at fault for not allowing something that should be allowed. But sometimes there is no choice but to use these compilers.

Can Poco please be changed so that any comments on the end of preprocessor directives are done as C comments, rather than C++? This will make it more portable, particularly for AIX.

[guenter]

I have strong doubts that POCO will compile on a C++ compiler that cannot even get basic preprocessor things right - even more so the upcoming 1.3 release containing template metaprogramming stuff. So, before doing a project-wide search-replace I'd like to have it confirmed that this will not be a complete waste of time.

So, if someone has access to an AIX system, can you please try to build POCO and tell us what needs to be changed.

The general policy regarding non-conforming compilers is simple: we do not support them - we value a clean code base more than support for crappy compilers. The C++ Standard is now more than eight years old, and conforming compilers are widely available.

[guenter]

What we could do, if there is some interest (and volunteers) available, is create a branch of POCO that works with older/non-conforming compilers. This branch will probably have to leave out some things and maybe do some weird hacks to make it work. But it would give the possibility to use POCO to folks stuck with braindead compilers. The only thing I don't want is workarounds for such compilers in the main POCO branch.

Interest?
Volunteers?