Re: [boost] [clang] How to use CLang for Windows?

Subject: Re: [boost] [clang] How to use CLang for Windows?
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-09-29 16:06:16

On 9/29/2013 3:32 PM, Beman Dawes wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Jonathan Wakely
> <jwakely.boost_at_[hidden]>wrote:
>
>> On 28 September 2013 21:50, Edward Diener wrote:
>>>
>>> I still do not see a roadmap for using clang with Boost Build under
>> Windows
>>> to build/test Boost libraries.
>>>
>>> Am I supposed to download a Windows snapshot from
>> http://llvm.org/builds/ ?
>>>
>>> Am I supposed to get the latest llvm/clang from
>>> http://clang.llvm.org/get_started.html and build it for Visual Studio (
>> this
>>> never worked properly in the past and there is no mention of VS2012 on
>> that
>>> page ).
>>>
>>> Am I supposed to use a 'clang' toolset on Windows with Boost Build ?
>>>
>>> As usual, with no doubt all the "good" intentions in the world to allow
>>> clang to be used under Windows, the documentation, explanation, and
>> support
>>> for clnag under Windows is lacking/minimal.
>>
>> Sounds like you're expecting someone to have already made this work.
>> That's not how the bleeding edge of open source works, *especially*
>> when combining things from different projects on a new platform!
>>
>> Someone has to figure all that stuff out bit by bit and fix the things
>> that don't work.  If you just expect to download a complete, working
>> environment then you should wait until someone else has done the hard
>> work.
>>
>
> +1
>
> Edward, Jonathan is exactly right about this.
>
> If you want to help, at the very least start grinding out bug reports for
> Clang on Windows. If you want to do even more, ask the Clang on Windows
> team what more you can do. For example, running tests for them. See their
> request for a test runner (hard to do cause I haven't posted it yet, but
> wait a few minutes...).

With all due respect, Beman, there is no point of doing this at least 
for Boost headers once I reverted the fix to the Boost PP code that 
would have allowed clang under Windows to correctly compiler Boost PP 
code as a strictly conforming C++ standard preprocessor. It fails 
miserably as the VC++ preprocessor and I am not personally interested 
particularly in discovering why since the VC++ preprocessor is just 
badly broken in a number of respects general. To emulate that brokeness 
cannot be the goal of any C++ compiler.

I will wish the clang people best of luck on their Windows 
implementation but if it means emulating VC++ in every respect I do not 
see the purpose of it, as I can just as well use VC++.