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

[Renato Golin]

On 24 August 2014 08:45, Yaron Keren <yaron.keren at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ideally, I'd like to see clang completely support Visual C++ ABI and
> debugging info so we'll have the best solution, clang with Visual Studio and
> integrated debugger.

Amidst all the flame, there's one truth coming out of it, and one that
we already have a firm opinion: following broken tools is not a wise
path. And by broken here, I don't mean MSVC, I mean GCC.

While there are many good things coming out of GCC at any moment in
time, not all that comes is gold, and we took the decision long ago to
not blindly follow what GCC does just because "bacon". I'd rather not
do that with MSVC either.

In the same way that both GCC and MSVC are broken, Clang/LLVM is
*also* broken, and anyone following us, will have a hard time. I had
to do that myself at one time, and it wasn't pleasant. LLVM is a
mature library, Clang is a mature compiler, but we still don't have a
mature toolchain like both GCC and MSVC have on either Linux or
Windows and very likely not even on Darwin.

That all means two things:

1. We can't complain about others before having a working toolchain
that is stable, widely used and with a mission that isn't "work as a
replacement to <foo>".

2. We'll have to choose our path, which will probably not be the same
as any other toolchain exactly, and we have to stick to it.

The fact that we're sticking to rational decisions is finally changing
the source code of many lazy developers that thought that GCC was the
only option. A few examples are the Linux kernel, the Android system
and the Chromium browser. I'd love to see the same effort and
determination on the Windows side, as I hear many horror stories of
patchy support and people having nightmares about it. Though, I have
no idea where to start, as I haven't used Windows for almost two
decades.

I agree with Chandler, lets go back to the matter a hand. But the
result might be, from Alex's answer, that we can't do it just now.

My only point in this email is: shall we try harder? Shall we try to
liberate horrified users, like we're doing with the other toolchain?
:D

cheers,
--renato