Windows: Replace VisualStudio with gcc/clang?

[Thomas Stüfe]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 11:40 PM, Stephen Colebourne <scolebourne at joda.org>
wrote:

> On 12 March 2018 at 15:36, Erik Joelsson <erik.joelsson at oracle.com> wrote:
> > On 2018-03-12 03:18, Magnus Ihse Bursie wrote:
> > Just to comment on this. Microsoft has introduced standalone C++ build
> > tools:
> >
> > http://landinghub.visualstudio.com/visual-cpp-build-tools
> >
> > I haven't looked into it yet, but it seems to be a much more lightweight
> > alternative to installing Visual Studio if you just want to be able to
> build
> > something. We should certainly make sure this works when full support
> for VS
> > 2017 is in.
>
> From my perspective, something needs to change, as I found it
> completely impossible to install the old Visual Studio releases the
> JDK demands (and it took ages just to find them). Requiring outdated
> tooling to build the JDK really isn't great.
>
> Stephen
>

I agree. This is what I meant when I wrote earlier:

"Also, installing Visual Studio could be easier by making sure that we
always can build with the latest community version, early when it comes
out. Since it is not so easy to find community/express/whatever downloads
for earlier versions of Visual Studio. "

Unfortunately, this is sometimes a major effort, see e.g. the many VS2017
related patches of the last months.

..Thomas