Yes the compiler requirement is driven by Scintilla, but thats a separate 
project and can make its own decisions, and Geany is only one of the users of 
that software.  Whilst a branch compatible with C++11 has been maintained until 
recently, because the requirement for C++17 the day the standard was released 
was deemed too fast, that is no longer the case, so to update Scintilla 
requires moving to the current version that requires C++17 and we hope to do 
that in 1.38 which will move the requirement.

The only possible workaround would be for somebody to take over that C++11 
branch in the Scintilla project and maintain it for as long as they can, but it 
won't be the Geany project.

But as I said in my edit, even that branch, which we are using in 1.37, needs a 
_working_ C++11 compiler, GCC 4.8 is not a complete C++11 compiler, that didn't 
come until something like GCC 5.4 IIRC, so its not unlikely that it will have 
problems with some C++11.  So for "too old" you can read "not standards 
compliant yet" if you like.

That branch intended to be compatible with compilers back to GCC 4.8, but maybe 
something newer leaked in or a change triggered a bug since its difficult for 
the (no longer) maintainer of the branch to check the backported changes from 
the C++17 Scintilla for compliance against a not yet standard compiler and the 
associated not yet standard library.

And a rant of my own if I may, I am tired of people demanding that others 
invest the effort to support their particular configuration with no 
contribution of their own.  Even to find the cause and possible workarounds 
takes effort that somebody has to provide.  As I said above, even distros that 
use 4.8 as their standard compiler provide newer ones in their distros, and 
they can be installed at the same time as 4.8. Because you are compiling the 
whole application yourself with one compiler, and not using any other C++ 
libraries, issues with ABI incompatibilities with 4.8 won't worry you. End rant.

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