Chrome On Windows Ditches Microsoft's Compiler, Now Uses Clang (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google's Chrome browser is now built using the Clang compiler on Windows. Previously built using the Microsoft C++ compiler, Google is now using the same compiler for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, and the switch makes Chrome arguably the first major software project to use Clang on Windows. Chrome on macOS and Linux has long been built using the Clang compiler and the LLVM toolchain. The open-source compiler is the compiler of choice on macOS, making it the natural option there, and it's also a first-class choice for Linux; though the venerable GCC is still the primary compiler choice on Linux, by using Clang instead, Google ensured that it has only one set of compiler quirks and oddities to work with rather than two. But Chrome on Windows has instead used Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler. The Visual C++ compiler is the best-supported, most widely used compiler on Windows and, critically, is the compiler with the best support for Windows' wide range of debugging and diagnostic tools. The Visual Studio debugger is widely loved by the C++ community, and other tools, such as the WinDbg debugger (often used for analyzing crash dumps), are core parts of the Windows developer experience.

Comments

No, that's typical of commercial software.

[Anonymous Coward]

Commercial software is written for profit; the programmers don't do shit to improve it unless there's a paying customer.

In contrast, open-source programs are written largely by people who are trying to scratch their own itches, including performance itches.

Good luck re-programming Microsoft Edge when you're unhappy with its performance.

illustrating the power of open source

[e**(i pi)-1]

Open source projects like Clang is what brings us forward. Especially in the long term. Open source has enabled and improved many commercial products. The current case that Microsoft uses it as part of their development illustrates this very well.

Re:Vivaldi

[istartedi]

The option to use a 3rd party compiler for the release has always been there. The big news in TFA is that Microsoft helped them with the PDB format so that you could compile *and* debug with Clang.