Working on ngSkinTools.com plugin, one complication I face almost constantly is properly compiling C++ plugin for multiple Maya and operating system combinations. While I often hear from other plugin developers that it does not matter much and using latest compiler works, that’s not the usual case for me.
Some examples:
File saving/loading on Windows will crash because of MPxData API. Solution: stick to recommended compiler version for each specific Maya release.
Compiling Linux binaries on something like Ubuntu with newer CLib will not load the plugin for users that stick to Autodesk’s recommended CentOS version. Solution: build on CentOS 6.5 VM.
The only way that precise compiler and library versions are reported by Autodesk is through Cyrille Fauvel’s blog: see the post for Maya 2018.
Also, I was really missing an overview of C++11 and C++14 support.
With the above in mind, I came up with this spreadsheet. Mostly just a summary of Cyrille’s published info, and some analysis on C++ features as reported by each specific compiler.