[Paraview-developers] VS2013 and VS2015 support

[Utkarsh Ayachit]

Folks,

Some changes are making their way into VTK (via VTKm) that require VS
2015 and drop support for VS 2013. While these remain optional for
now, we'd need to enable these components in the  binaries we
distribute from paraview.org.

Consequently, here's the proposed plan:

1. Migrate Windows binaries generation to a new dashboard (hera) with
VS 2015. Starting today non-mpi binaries from this dashboard will
start showing up. We'll work on getting the MPI versions working in
the coming weeks. Binaries built on this dashboard will be uploaded as
nightlies and will eventually become the 5.6 release.

2. Leave one VS2013 dashboard on miranda (I propose we leave the MPI
version, and remove the non-mpi build) to ensure the ParaView binaries
continue to build on VS2013 (minus the optional components that
require VS2015). This will live on till we drop support for VS 2013.

3. We'll drop support for VS2013 after the fall release of ParaView.
VS2015 will be the minimum supported version. To clarify, the release
out in fall (5.6) will continue to support VS2013 (with  components
disabled, as needed). It's the one after that (early 2019) that will
no longer build with VS 2013.

Please let me know if you have any objections/concerns.

Thanks
Utkarsh