On 2 April 2011 19:13, kevin diggs wrote: > Hi, > > When did the tree browser show up? 4.x? > > Would it be anywhere close to accurate to say (language evolution not > withstanding), the major change(s) from 3.4.6 to 4.x are GIMPLE and > SSA optimization techniques? Certainly between 3.4 and 4.0, yes. It was decided to change the major version number and call the release 4.0 instead of 3.5 because that was the first release using SSA which was a major change to the internals, involving changes to large parts of the compiler. IIRC there was some toing and froing about the version number at the time because SSA didn't introduce any major new features for users as might be expected for a new major version release (certainly not comparable to the new C++ parser introduced in 3.4 which was a significant user-visible change from 3.3), but the internal changes were deemed significant enough to warrant a new major version.
