[LLVMdev] Minor correction to the Visual Studio documentation/Windows support in general

[Mikael Lyngvig]

>
> the problem is that very few LLVM developers use or know anything about
> Windows.
> The only way for this to change is for people who do know and care about
> Windows
> to step forward, work on improving Windows support, and contribute their
> Windows
> viewpoint to design discussions etc.
>

As it is now, Windows users will quite likely drop LLVM because of the
somewhat immature Windows support.  I know, I did for a year or two.  Now
the support is mature enough that I dare try it out for real.  Therefore I
suggest that you make it a point to always release adequate Windows
binaries and documentation whenever a new release of LLVM is made.  I'm
referring to the v3.0 release, which had no Windows binaries.

I think that is going to change as the Windows support matures.  For
now, I'd like to volunteer to help out as a Windows evangelist (ouch, that
sounds so Microsofty).  If you need help building LLVM on Windows or help
to keep the Windows documentation up-to-date, please feel free to call on
me.  Right now I cannot commit to so much in terms of coding, except,
perhaps helping on the llvm-ar project, but I might one day be able to
contribute substantial hours.  I have good knowledge of Windows NT as I
have used it since 1994.  Also, I have worked as a build master once.  I do
have equipment enough that I can set up a dedicated, albeit slow, Windows
build server to do daily builds or whatever might be needed.

One project I'd like to complete pretty soon is to go through the build
instructions, for mingw32, and see if I can't somehow create a mingw64
build.  I believe the 32-bit platform is dying by the hour so I'm rather
eager to have a mingw64 version of LLVM/Clang.  Also, I'd love to make a
.tool to automatically retrieve and build LLVM and Clang from the rather
large set of 3rd party tools that are needed to build it.  Whether this is
useful or not, I still don't know because I haven't been through the actual
process of building the mingw32 version of LLVM/Clang myself.  I was so
fortunate that I discovered the Windows release in v3.1 and quickly grabbed
it and tried it out.  And it seems to run very well so far.


Cheers,
Mikael.
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