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Targets
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- Determine C++ language standard to target while supporting the necessary platforms.
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and Language
The initial target set of agents are those already supported: Apache (2.4 only), IIS 7+, and FastCGI. Of these, Apache and FastCGI need to be in C/C++, while it is in principle possible that IIS could be implemented via .NET, and thus in other languages. Given that the majority of the code needed for IIS already exists (or is portable and necessary to support the others anyway), it’s probably we would include IIS in the initial C/C++ set.
I am not inclined to roll back the code we do have and write a lot of new code in C. Yes, it’s more portable, easier and faster to build, etc. It’s also far more error prone and lacking in basic library facilities that modern C++ has available. That said, the nature of that C++ code needs to change radically, simplifying and modernizing it, dropping the use of templates wherever possible, and sticking to the standard library only.
The nominal obvious target would be C++11, but we need to research whether a newer version would be practical. Elimination of various Boost-based tricks is essential, especially non-standard lambda and parameter binding templatesC++14 is supported on all of the “current” platforms we support (granted, a very small set) and appears to be supported on all non-EOL versions of Debian/Ubuntu. The main outliers for C++14 support are RHEL 7 (and similar) and Suse 12, neither of which are actively supported, though we do build packages for CentOS 7 and Amazon Linux 2. The former addresses RHEL 7, which is extremely widely adopted (and will be long past its EOL date).
That’s not accounting for the fact that it will be likely 2 years until this code is ready for wide adoption, which makes C++14 a practical option if it offers any benefit over C++11, but probably not otherwise.
Dependencies
The only allowable dependencies must be usable on both Windows and non-Windows platforms (or there must be native alternatives to use). The set should be as minimal as possible. At this stage, only the following has been identified as critical needs:
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