Re: [PATCH 0/1] Add a test balloon for C99

"brian m. carlson" [off-list ref] writes:

On 2021-11-15 at 07:00:25, Junio C Hamano wrote:

quoted

"brian m. carlson" [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Even for users who would like to target an older version of Windows,
such as the no longer supported Windows 7, GCC and Clang are available.
The LLVM suite, including Clang, is available pre-compiled for download
free of charge.  Using a different compiler is specifically proposed by
Microsoft staff[1] as a solution for users who wish to build modern
programs for MSVC versions which do not support modern C.

As such, we can assume that Git can be safely compiled with C99 or C11
support on all operating systems which receive security support, and
even some which do not.  Our CI confirms that this series passes all
tests.  Let's introduce a test balloon which checks for this support and
fails with an error message if it is absent.

I do not have much against adopting nicer C99 language features in
principle, but I hope that we are not becoming too Linux centric
with "other than Linux, as long as Windows is OK in some form,
everything is peachy" mentality.

It's definitely not my goal to exclude Windows here.  I'm pretty sure
every major Unix platform will handle this fine, and an up to date
MSVC will also handle this fine.

Because compiling Git for Windows is a lot of work (not due to any
failing of that project or its members, just the fact that it requires a
lot of components to be assembled, including a full POSIX environment),
it's not very likely we're going to see a lot of people doing it, since
almost all Windows users are going to be using the regular releases.
It's also likely that they're going to be using some automated CI system
which will likely support a recent version of the compiler.

However, we have in the past heard screaming from people who want to
support old versions of Windows, so my point here is that there are
options if they can't use MSVC for any reason and those options are
easy, accessible, and free of charge.  I should point out that we
already require people on non-Linux Unix systems to install GNU make and
possibly also a shell (if theirs doesn't support the local keyword), so
installing suitable tooling to build Git isn't without precedent.

Windows does not need me to worry about them---they can fend for
themselves.  I cannot tell if the original discussion behind the
patch considered the current situation in non-mac BSD land (which I
am not familiar with), or even less common platforms like NonStop.

On 2021-11-16 at 19:02:08, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Windows does not need me to worry about them---they can fend for
themselves.  I cannot tell if the original discussion behind the
patch considered the current situation in non-mac BSD land (which I
am not familiar with), or even less common platforms like NonStop.

Oh, I did full well consider BSD land.  They are generally up on the
latest standards, and I would even say that most proprietary Unix
systems are also far enough along from what I know of them.  I do try
specifically to support BSD systems and consider their needs to the best
of my abilities.

As for NonStop, I checked, and it already forces C99 mode because we use
enough features, like inline, that C89 doesn't support and so it needs
to do that already.

I do appreciate you looking out for them, though.
-- 
brian m. carlson (he/him or they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA