Re: [boost] [Modularization] A new approach to header modularization

Subject: Re: [boost] [Modularization] A new approach to header modularization
From: Ulrich Eckhardt (doomster_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-06-03 01:16:19

On Friday 29 May 2009 08:39:22 joaquin_at_[hidden] wrote:
> As a user, I can describe *my* reasons to favor header-only libs:
>
> 1. The whole bjam-driven building process is nontrivial and time and
> space consuming.
> 2. If autolinking is not available, picking up the right lib variant is not
> trivial.
> 3. Bulding libs selectively is not as easy as it might seem, due to the
> fact that interlib dependencies might force you to build libB when using
> libA, and you don't know in advance.
> 4. I'm not concerned about ABI issues given that, to start with,
> no ABI compatibility guarantees are provided across Boost versions.
>
> This is not to say that I'd like *every* lib to be header-only; but
> I'd say the benefits of moving to a link-based lib should be balanced
> against points 1-4.

You can have your cake and eat it:

  https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/3103

It requires one unusual thing, #including a .cpp file, but otherwise the usage 
is dead simple.

Uli