Re: [boost] Review Queue Needs Attention

Subject: Re: [boost] Review Queue Needs Attention
From: Mathias Gaunard (mathias.gaunard_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-12-11 07:25:09

Vladimir Prus wrote:
> Tim Blechmann wrote:
> 
>>>>> (And a state not damned with faint praise like 'unstable' - which is perhaps
>>>>> better described as 'likely_to_be_improved' rather than actively 'not stable').
>>> The apache incubator might be a more appropriate inspiration than
>>> Debian unstable.
>> the current sandbox layout has the disadvantage, that single projects
>> are present as sandbox/mylib, which do not run or compile on their own,
>> but require a full set of the boost headers. in order to try out one
>> sandbox library, you need to get the boost checkout/tarball and copy it
>> to sandbox/mylib or vice versa ...
> 
> Just to clarify -- what is wrong with starting with checkout of 'main'
> Boost tree, and then doing 2 "svn co" per any sandbox library you want
> to try?

It's not easy to tell the differences between main trunk and the sandbox 
library, it feels like polluting your boost trunk, you probably need to 
have different copies of your trunk lying around with or without certain 
libraries enabled, basically, it's quite a pain to manage.

I think providing a Jamfile for the sandbox that would allow to "enable" 
sandbox pseudo-branches while trying to compile BOOST_ROOT would be very 
nice.
That way you would just checkout the sandbox separately and not pollute 
anything else, you just use BOOST_ROOT for reference for what you lack.

Sure, using actual real branches might be better, but I personally 
believe that makes the barrier to entry quite higher.

Another thing that would make the sandbox feel more serious or involved 
would be automated tests. I suppose one variant on one platform would be 
enough, it doesn't even need to be as regular as the trunk.