Windows: Replace VisualStudio with gcc/clang?

[Hendrik Schreiber]

Hey,

inspired by the recent news that Chrome ditched the Microsoft C++ compiler and replaced it with gcc/clang (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/03/chrome-on-windows-ditches-microsofts-compiler-now-uses-clang/), I’m wondering wether that’s possible and desirable for OpenJDK, too.

From my point of view: Yes.

Downloading, installing etc. Visual Studio is a major pain for anybody usually working on another platform. Whenever I encounter a bug that’s Windows specific, I pretty much always give up the idea to create a fix and instead just report a bug. It’s just too much of a hassle to create a working build environment.

So has migrating to gcc/clang for Windows been evaluated? Is it an option at all? Would it make things easier or harder? What do you think? Besides ease of use, how would such a move affect performance?

Cheers,

-hendrik