[crossfire] Crossfire server code cleanup/janitorial

[Kevin Zheng]

On 04/19/2014 03:46, Tolga Dalman wrote:
> 1. What platforms are still relevant ? Beside Linux and BSD, I found 
> references to these OSes:  win32, hurd, hpux, ultrix, osf1, sgi,
> sun, vax, ibm032.

Right now, there are many people using Windows, Linux, BSD, and OSX.
Most recent development took place on Linux and BSD.

While it's hard to imagine someone running a Crossfire server on VAX or
an IBM032, I don't think it's necessary to go in and explicitly pull out
support. I highly doubt those platforms still work _with_ current
support, because nobody has been able to test.

Crossfire tries to be portable, so a good goal would be to remove
conditional compilations from most of the source code. In an ideal world
every portable project should run on any semi-compliant system with
appropriate libraries installed.

> 2. What C standard is relevant ? Moving towards C99 or even C11 would
> allow large portions of cleanups (standard functions, types, language
> constructs, etc).

I think moving to C99 is a good idea, but right now the blocking issue
seems to be Visual Studio, which is used to build the server on Windows.
It'd be interesting to find out how much C99 VS supports.

> 3. What about the use of C++ (2011) ? It is clearly possible to
> smoothly convert existing code to C++ which allows better maintenance
> of the code.

That looks like a long-term goal, because I don't see that happening
until more stuff is cleaned up. As Nicholas mentioned, there isn't a
pressing need for C++. That, and I don't know C++ :D

Thanks,
Kevin Zheng