[Development] Let's please drop MSVC 2013 for 5.10

[Adam Treat]

On 06/23/2017 03:23 PM, Marc Mutz wrote:
> [forgot to CC list]
>
> On 2017-06-23 19:50, Thiago Macieira wrote:
>> On Friday, 23 June 2017 09:17:55 PDT Marc Mutz wrote:
>>> The above argument makes no sense to me. What value does quoting
>>> download numbers for 5.9, an LTS, have, to argue about dropping the
>>> compiler from 5.10. Ever since we provide LTSs (yes, once), we drop
>>> compilers in the version _after_ the LTS, which is kind of the natural
>>> point to drop stuff.
>>
>> The point is that in June 2017, 30% of the Windows downloads were for 
>> MSVC
>> 2013. it doesn't matter that this is an LTS release or not: way too many
>> people are using that compiler. We need to "wean" them off 2013, so I'm
>> starting a note in the 5.9.1 changelog that it will be gone in 5.11 
>> (one year
>> advance notice):
>
> We didn't "wean people off" 2012, either. And how can we decide to 
> drop 2013 in 5.11 if we don't know what the download numbers will be, 
> then, yet? Who's crystal ball makes such decisions possible?

Now you favor using retrospective downloads as sole criterion? You only 
want to drop support when downloads go below a certain threshold?

Or is this your attempt at a reductio ad absurdum argument that using 
downloads to inform is only legit when used retrospectively as sole 
criterion?