Re: Can we get rid of auto-linking?

From: René Ferdinand Rivera Morell (grafikrobot_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-04-28 14:42:35

On Sun, Apr 28, 2024 at 4:16 AM Peter Dimov via Boost
<boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> John Maddock wrote:
> > On 27/04/2024 22:08, Glen Fernandes via Boost wrote:
> > > On Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 4:56 PM René Ferdinand Rivera Morell wrote:
> > >
> > >> Can we get rid of auto-linking?
> > >>
> > >>
> > > I've always felt that auto-linking should have been disabled by default.
> > >
> > > But then I remember users complaining when it is:
> > > https://github.com/boostorg/boost_install/issues/54
> >
> > The problem is one of "which of the many library variants do I link to?".  My
> > experience was always that users are terrible at picking the right one, and if
> > they do do that, then the result is some very hard to track down errors arising
> > from two different std libraries (memory
> > managers) being in play.  And that means more bug reports for us :(
> >
> > But.... if you're using Boost.Build, or even CMake to build everything at once
> > then it's obviously not an issue.
>
> It's a Rene-specific issue because he builds with b2 without the superproject,
> which means that the superproject is no longer defining BOOST_ALL_NO_LIB
> for him, but he hasn't fixed the Jamfiles of the libraries to define the library-
> specific BOOST_<LIBNAME>_NO_LIB macros (as I have in CMake.)

Except for the "It's a Rene-specific issue" part that's all true. :-)

> And yes, I agree that not having autolinking will generate many more
> complaints that having it does today.

Perhaps. Although it's easy enough to find instances of people having
problems with it..

<https://cpplang.slack.com/archives/C41CWV9HA/p1697231475429529>
<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27626891/is-visual-studio-adding-dependencies-from-out-of-nowhere>
<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27254718/maps-in-shared-memory-boost-interprocess-demo-fails-due-to-unmet-date-time-depe/27254899#27254899>
<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44133002/boost-vs2017-linking-to-the-wrong-dll/44133003#44133003>
<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51150197/cmake-generated-program-fails-to-link-on-windows-tries-to-link-to-non-existent/51150394#51150394>

But I guess I'll go fix everyone's Jamfile's now. Because authors
failed to do that over the past decades. Probably because all build
systems are terrible. But likely stemming from C++ building being a
giant mess. (insert old-man-screaming-at-clouds image here)

-- 
-- René Ferdinand Rivera Morell
-- Don't Assume Anything  -- No Supone Nada
-- Robot Dreams - http://robot-dreams.net