[vtkusers] [vtk-developers] Can we drop Visual Studio 6 support?

[Bill Lorensen]

Customers include companies that build "products".

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Scott, W Alan <wascott at sandia.gov> wrote:
> I'm confused.
> Customers would use the pre-compiled binary, wouldn't they?
> Anyone that wants to compile ParaView is almost by definition a developer.
>
> Just my own opinion - there is also the issue of cost in dollars and manpower.  If I had my way, we would be spending our limited resources cleaning up ParaView for the 3.6 release, working on multi-thread/ multi-core support, informatics, etc.  If someone does want VS 6.0 support (or any other support for a 10 year old compiler), maybe either they should pay for it or do it themselves?
>
> I would vote to get rid of any compilers that are no longer supported.
>
> Alan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: vtk-developers-bounces at vtk.org [mailto:vtk-developers-bounces at vtk.org] On Behalf Of Bill Lorensen
> Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 1:16 PM
> To: Pebay, Philippe P
> Cc: VTK Developers; VTK Users; Thompson, David C; Berk Geveci
> Subject: Re: [vtk-developers] [vtkusers] Can we drop Visual Studio 6 support?
>
> I understand your view as a developer. But, this is hard to justify to a customer.
>
> Bill
>
> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Pebay, Philippe P <pppebay at sandia.gov> wrote:
>> I think there is a more fundamental reason why we should drop VS 6.0
>> support. Being 10 years old, this compiler lacks C++ features which developers may want to (and do) use. As a result, we have to write more complicated or less efficient code. This is not good.
>>
>> P
>> --
>> Philippe Pébay
>> Sandia National Laboratories
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: vtk-developers-bounces at vtk.org [vtk-developers-bounces at vtk.org]
>> On Behalf Of Bill Lorensen [bill.lorensen at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 11:35 AM
>> To: Thompson, David C
>> Cc: VTK Developers; VTK Users; Berk Geveci
>> Subject: Re: [vtk-developers] [vtkusers] Can we drop Visual Studio 6 support?
>>
>> With ITK, if we have a VS6 or Borland or mingw or cygwin or VS7 or SUN
>> CC or 64 bit ICC or ... problem, we ask someone that has the compiler
>> to investigate a fix. Some errors are hard to fix without access to a
>> compiler.
>>
>> If you are still having a problem,  I have a VS6 compiler and can try
>> to track it down for you.
>>
>> Bill
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 2:19 PM, David Thompson <dcthomp at sandia.gov> wrote:
>>>> What sort of maintenance issues are you having?
>>> This type:
>>> http://public.kitware.com/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/Common/vtkUnicodeString
>>> .cxx?view=log There are *many* more examples (perhaps not all as
>>> humorously narrated), but the general problem is that the dashboard
>>> machines are the only way for many developers to test whether
>>> something will work with MSVC6. It can be quite irritating to check
>>> in something that should fix a compile problem and have to wait 1-2
>>> hours before seeing the result.
>>>
>>>> I think the real issue is what compilers do the VTK installed base
>>>> use? You may have customers that are using 3rd party
>>>> drivers/libraries that are VS6. Actually, there is no way to know who the customers are.
>>> It would be nice to assume that customers who continue to develop
>>> with VTK read at least the digest, but I agree that some may note and
>>> it could be some time before we hear from them. I still think it is a
>>> good idea to drop VC6 not because it's irritating to debug build
>>> problems but because it can lead to obfuscated code as people rewrite
>>> bits here and there to accommodate old syntax and broken STL implementations.
>>>
>>>        David
>>>
>>>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Berk Geveci <berk.geveci at kitware.com> wrote:
>>>> > Hi folks,
>>>> >
>>>> > We are thinking of dropping support for Visual Studio 6. It is
>>>> > causing annoying maintenance issues since no one in the developer
>>>> > team uses it and since VS 6 supports only a subset of modern C++
>>>> > features. Are there any objects? If yes, I would like to know why.
>>>> >
>>>> > Best,
>>>> > -berk
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > Powered by www.kitware.com
>>>> >
>>>> > Visit other Kitware open-source projects at
>>>> > http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html
>>>> >
>>>> > Please keep messages on-topic and check the VTK FAQ at:
>>>> > http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VTK_FAQ
>>>> >
>>>> > Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe:
>>>> > http://www.vtk.org/mailman/listinfo/vtkusers
>>>> >
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Powered by www.kitware.com
>>>>
>>>> Visit other Kitware open-source projects at
>>>> http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html
>>>>
>>>> Please keep messages on-topic and check the VTK FAQ at:
>>>> http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VTK_FAQ
>>>>
>>>> Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe:
>>>> http://www.vtk.org/mailman/listinfo/vtkusers
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Powered by www.kitware.com
>>
>> Visit other Kitware open-source projects at
>> http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html
>>
>> Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe:
>> http://www.vtk.org/mailman/listinfo/vtk-developers
>>
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Powered by www.kitware.com
>
> Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html
>
> Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://www.vtk.org/mailman/listinfo/vtk-developers
>
>
>
>