[boost] boost library interdepence

From: jsiek_at_[hidden]
Date: 2000-05-03 13:04:39

I think this is a very important issue, because reuse is very
important. That's the whole point of boost and writing libraries in
general. If you don't reuse boost, why should anyone else?
Anotherwords, I think the choice should always be to reuse, and never
duplicate.

However, this of course leads to the very real problem you mention of
tight coupling. And as more and more usefull libraries come on the
scene the problem will get worse and worse. You'll have multiple
layers of libraries: the dependecies will end up a pretty complicated
graph :)

What I'm currently doing for my libraries is just include a copy of
boost. However, this is not optimal because there's an issue of
keeping things up-to-date with boost releases.

What is needed is something like RPMs for C++ header files. We need a
system for automatically tracking and managing dependencies.  When you
install a library, this automagic system should make sure all the
dependent libraries are installed or download and install them if they
are not there.

Cheers,

Jeremy

Gary Powell writes:
 > Question: Should a library in the vault or on the boost web page in 
 > general require other boost libraries?
 > 
 > Other than reusing boost/config.hpp, as a library writer, should I 
 > make every effort to use all of the other boost libraries? Or should 
 > every library be stand-a-lone, with no other boost files being 
 > necessary.
 > 
 > On one hand, reuse is good. On the other hand tight linking is bad. A 
 > I hate it when I download one library only to find I need eight more. 
 > So if we do interlink libraries, it should be obvious to a user 
 > downloading which other libraries we are dependent on.
 > 
 > Also, since the library I'm working on is available on other sites, 
 > should there be two copies, one which uses the boost libraries, and 
 > one which doesn't? And what about libraries that are in the vault but 
 > not fully accepted? Should we reuse those libraries on the hope that 
 > they will be accepted? And of course once we do that, accepting one 
 > library could cause a chain of acceptence's which may or may not be a 
 > good idea.
 > 
 > This is an easy question for simple source that is one file, like 
 > operators.hpp, and much more of an issue for VTL which has 90+ files.
 > 
 > Comments?
 > 
 >   -Gary-
 > 
 > gary.powell_at_[hidden]
 > 
 > 
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