Required VS compiler

[Thomas Friedrichsmeier]

Well, this thread is already split across two lists, so I'm
cross-replying...

On Mon, 21 Mar 2016 22:07:57 +0100
Dominik Haumann <dhaumann at kde.org> wrote:
> I installed Qt 5.6.0 and MSVC 2015, and surprisingly Kate
> including all its dependencies compiled out of the box.
> 
> I still see QStringLiteral fixes from time to time on the commit
> mailing list. Given MSVC 2015 Community Edition is available
> just like v2013, and it seems to work I believe that committing
> such fixes does not make sense, in fact, it often makes code
> worse.
> 
> Therefore, I would like to propose v2015 as required compiler
> and Qt5.6 as required Qt version on Windows, or are there
> reasons against it?

I'll put it the other way around. Annoying as it is, does that
QStringLiteral nuisance justify upping the requirements? Factually that
_is_ going to happen as the MSVC 2013 (and 2012) builds are
going to get less testing. But I don't think that is a state we should
actively rush into. Increased requirements always come with an
increased cost.

I don't know if anybody is producing fully official windows binaries
based on KF5, yet. But once I will be doing that for RKWard, I know I
will appreciate a somewhat stable environment. Say I just want to pull
in a fix in framework X. I may have to update some dependencies, too,
but I hope it will not mean _starting from scratch_ (new compiler, new
Qt, etc.).

Also, suppose Qt 5.6.0 turns out to have some nasty bug that I just
can't work around. Keeping backwards compatibility with Qt 5.5 forever
is not an option, but discarding fallback options, again, carries a
cost.

> Qt 5.5 is not precompiled for MSVC 2015, that's why increasing
> the Qt version should be fine, especially since 5.6 is an LTS
> version.

Note that with Qt 5.5, MSVC 2013 was the _only_ supported compiler for
QtWebEngine, not just for pre-built binaries. So MSVC 2013 would have
been one of the most obvious choices up until one week ago.

Regards
Thomas
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