From: "Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason" <avarab@gmail.com>
To: "brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Cc: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Microsoft's C language policy (was: [PATCH 0/1] Add a test balloon for C99)
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2021 21:43:15 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <211130.86o861cqnu.gmgdl@evledraar.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20211114212437.1466695-1-sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
On Sun, Nov 14 2021, brian m. carlson wrote:
[Replying to this tidbit in the v1 CL, which isn't in the V2 one]
> Unfortunately, Microsoft for many years refused[1] to support C99 in
> MSVC, and still does not officially do so. However, they recently added
> support for C11 and C17, which are sufficient for modern programming.
> These require a newer version of MSVC, including an updated SDK. The
> SDK update is available for download free of charge, and most public CI
> systems have support for both the updated MSVC and the SDK update.
>
> 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.
>
> [0] The reader will note that there are people working professionally in
> this industry who were not yet born at the time C99 was ratified. Thus,
> this occurred quite a long time ago indeed.
> [1] https://herbsutter.com/2012/05/03/reader-qa-what-about-vc-and-c99/
I hadn't seen that blog post before I'd read it when going over your
series. I'd assumed that Microsoft was just dragging their feed on C
language support, but that post indicates (from what seems to be as
official of a source as anyone's going to get) that they're intending to
not support C at all, but just some pseudo-C that happens to be a
convenient subset of C++.
However that post is from 2012, and you indicate that they've since
added (full?) support for C11 and C17.
So is this "policy" of supporting some arbitrary subset of C++ at all
current as far as MSVC today goes?
Aside: I just remembered we had a (seemingly abandoned) effort to get git's sources to
compile with a C++ compiler[1], which would be another possible way
forward to using more modern C features that happened to overlap with
C++. Another one would be some sort of coccinelle-powered refactoring or
other source pre-processing...
1. https://lore.kernel.org/git/20180129223728.30569-1-bmwill@google.com/
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-11-30 20:52 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 32+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-11-14 21:24 [PATCH 0/1] Add a test balloon for C99 brian m. carlson
2021-11-14 21:24 ` [PATCH 1/1] git-compat-util: add a test balloon for C99 support brian m. carlson
2021-11-15 1:14 ` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
2021-11-15 1:54 ` brian m. carlson
2021-11-15 3:16 ` Eric Sunshine
2021-11-16 1:53 ` brian m. carlson
2021-11-22 11:47 ` Johannes Schindelin
2021-11-14 21:43 ` [PATCH 0/1] Add a test balloon for C99 brian m. carlson
2021-11-15 7:00 ` Junio C Hamano
2021-11-15 22:41 ` brian m. carlson
2021-11-16 19:02 ` Junio C Hamano
2021-11-17 1:51 ` brian m. carlson
2021-11-16 2:12 ` [PATCH v2 0/1] Add a test balloon for C99 support brian m. carlson
2021-11-16 2:12 ` [PATCH v2 1/1] git-compat-util: add " brian m. carlson
2021-11-16 12:19 ` Jeff King
2021-11-16 12:54 ` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
2021-11-16 14:54 ` Jeff King
2021-11-17 2:53 ` brian m. carlson
2021-11-17 3:01 ` Jeff King
2021-11-17 23:18 ` brian m. carlson
2021-11-17 23:45 ` Carlo Arenas
2021-11-18 2:26 ` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
2021-11-18 19:10 ` Junio C Hamano
2021-11-17 8:49 ` Junio C Hamano
2021-11-16 19:44 ` Phillip Wood
2021-11-17 1:44 ` brian m. carlson
2021-11-17 2:58 ` Jeff King
2021-11-30 20:43 ` Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason [this message]
2021-11-30 22:37 ` Microsoft's C language policy (was: [PATCH 0/1] Add a test balloon for C99) brian m. carlson
2021-12-01 1:40 ` [PATCH v3 0/1] Add a test balloon for C99 support brian m. carlson
2021-12-01 1:40 ` [PATCH v3 1/1] git-compat-util: add " brian m. carlson
2021-12-02 17:38 ` Johannes Schindelin
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