[Development] Dropping MinGW support in Qt 6 (Was: HEADS-UP: QStringLiteral)

[Elvis Stansvik]

Den ons 21 aug. 2019 kl 20:52 skrev Henry Skoglund <henry at tungware.se>:
>
> Please, don't drop MinGW, it's in my meaning the best compiler on Windows.
>
> I've switched from VS to MinGW, the #1 reason: I can distribute an .exe
> file which is runnable directly on the user's desktop (no installation).
> This is *verboten* when using VS, you have to send along the
> distribution dlls (ucrtbase.dll etc.) and install them.

Why not just ship those DLLs? I wouldn't call that "verboten"
(forbidden), just a bit more to do for deployment.

We do app-local deployment (putting the DLLs next to our application),
which is still supported, and makes it possible for us to deliver a
portable ZIP in addition to an installer. You don't have to go the
route of launching the redistributables installer.

To make it less inconvenient we use CMake's
InstallRequiredSystemLibraries module along with setting
CMAKE_INSTALL_UCRT_LIBRARIES to make sure the Universal CRT DLLs are
also bundled.

Elvis

>
> Also, big wheels like Qt's installer program (MaintenanceTool.exe) have
> also switched from using Visual Studio to MinGW. I believe for the same
> reason as mine above, except MaintenanceTool.exe didn't include any VS
> .dlls, so on early Windows 10 versions, MaintenanceTool.exe failed to
> start, because no VS2015 runtime was installed.
>
> Nowadays MaintenanceTool.exe only requires the 32-bit MSVCRT.DLL to be
> present, and tbat .dll always gonna be there (just like the VB6 runtime
> etc.)
>
> This is one of the few places where Windows still shines: Qt's OOBE on
> Windows. On that platform, you don't need any chmod +x or waiting for a
> .dmg to unpack, just double-click on the .exe file.
>
> Rgrds Henry
>
>
>
> On 2019-08-21 20:35, Mathias Hasselmann wrote:
> > Am 21.08.2019 um 19:38 schrieb Thiago Macieira:
> >> PPS: can we drop MinGW support in Qt 6?
> > What alternative do you propse?
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