[cfe-dev] [RFC] Raising LLVM minimum required MSVC version to 2013 for trunk

[Chris Bieneman]

Starting a new thread to loop in cfe-dev and lldb-dev. For those not following along there has been a thread on llvm-dev about moving the minimum required Visual Studio version to 2013. The motivating reason is this will allow us to take advantage of a bunch of C++11 features that are not supported by MSVC 2012. According to MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh567368.aspx) the list is:

* Non-static data member initializers
* Variadic templates
* Initializer lists
* Default template arguments for function templates
* Expression SFINAE
* Alias templates
* Delegating constructors
* Explicit conversion operators
* Raw string literals
* Defaulted and deleted functions

From the discussion on LLVM-dev it is also believed that this may ease some development pain as people keep occasionally breaking LLVM trunk by using language features not available in MSVC.

Original thread:
http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2014-August/075900.html <http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2014-August/075900.html>

Chandler’s proposal for moving forward is as follows:
1) Loop in cfe-dev and lldb-dev (Done!)
2) Wait until this email fully circulates in digests and LLVM Weekly so that everyone who has an objection can voice it
3) If there are no objections, Commit a change to the CMake build which errors on old MSVC versions
4) Revert and fix buildbots
5) Repeat 3 & 4 until no issues
6) Once the change is live for a week with no issues, update the documentation to reflect the minimum required MSVC version as 2013

(http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2014-August/076090.html <http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2014-August/076090.html>)

Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-Chris


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