gcc is deprecated now. Use clang!

GCC vs Clang++

Short story: GCC is slow, old (consider compiling a C++17 package in RHEL), GPL, not hackable; while Clang changes everyting above plus having its family support from LLVM. If you don't care about programming at operating system level and don't need to maintain legacy code that solely relies on GCC, this is definitely a benefitial move.

One Button

Chandler Carruth's "LLVM: A Modern, Open C++ Toolchain" is a very nice talk to know more about modern toolchain for C++. What I found inspiring is how modern clang becomes. Below is a script drawn from the talk to download everything and build your clang from scratch.

git clone git://github.com/ninja-build/ninja.git
cd ninja
git checkout release
./configure.py --bootstrap

cd .. 
git clone --depth=1 https://llvm.org/git/llvm.git # Don't clone everything

cd llvm/tools 
git clone --depth=1 https://llvm.org/git/clang.git
git clone --depth=1 https://llvm.org/git/lld.git

cd clang/tools
git clone --depth=1 https://llvm.org/git/clang-tools-extra.git extra

cd ../../../projects
git clone --depth=1 https://llvm.org/git/libcxx.git
git clone --depth=1 https://llvm.org/git/libcxxabi.git
git clone --depth=1 https://llvm.org/git/compiler-rt.git 

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -GNinja  -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM=$(pwd)/../../ninja/ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/.local/ -DCOMPILER_RT_INCLUDE_TESTS=OFF -DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=OFF

$(pwd)/../../ninja/ninja && $(pwd)/../../ninja/ninja install

Finally, some finishing touch:

export CXX=$(which clang++)
export CC=$(which clang)

I actually use this script to install Clang in my local dotfiles environment.

Compiler at Your Finger Tip

Now after a few minute wait, you got the new freshly baked c++ compiler. No root permission or any painful dependency packages needed. Even though C++ seems to be the hardest language to apply modern package management, I still hope C++ community will eventually come up with a npm equivalent public code repo/package manager at least working for most *nix system.

Side Notes

If you lead a Pythonful life, to install cmake you can simply run pip install cmake and upgrade becomes easier.