Re: [PATCH v2] compat/bswap.h: simplify MSVC endianness detection

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Nov 10, 2020, 15:47 UTC
Message-ID: <nycvar.QRO.7.76.6.2011101643460.18437@tvgsbejvaqbjf.bet>
In-Reply-To: <f41271c0-973d-ee3f-9535-d7fbc5b073cf@gmail.com>

Hi Daniel,

On Tue, 10 Nov 2020, Daniel Gurney wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

> On 10/11/2020 16:04, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> > Point in reference:
> > you can build Linux applications in Visual Studio like _right now_ [*1*].
> >
> > Ciao,
> > Dscho
> >
> > Footnote *1*: It currently uses GCC, but who says it always will?
> > https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/linux/cmake-linux-project
>
> When it comes to building C++ code MSVC uses Microsoft's C++ Standard Library,
> and one of its stated non-goals[1] is being ported to other systems. I assume
> the same applies for their C library. Therefore to me a scenario where a
> future version of MSVC would build non-Windows code, let alone for a
> big-endian architecture, seems extremely unlikely.

Well, we know for a fact that at least XBox is a big-endian system and ther are rumors out there that Visual Studio _might_ be used to build software for that system.

Of course, I am not suggesting that we should build Git for XBox. But it seems dangerous to me to make too many assumptions.

> That said, I understand your overall point of view perfectly, and I'm fine
> with either one of my patches being applied since the end result today is the
> same.

As a maintainer, I am less concerned about the "result today" than I am about keeping things easy and effortless to maintain. One of your patches accomplishes that. The other one made it into `next`: https://github.com/git/git/commit/91a67b86f77

Ciao, Dscho