Re: [boost] New boost user

From: Dan Nuffer (dnuffer_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-10-04 15:22:46

Jeff Squyres wrote:
> 
> Greetings.
> 
> I was introduced to boost from my labmates Jeremy Siek and Rich Lee.
> 
> I thought that several of the libraries in boost would be able to help out
> in my work (including GGCL :-), so today I downloaded boost_all.zip.  I
> was surprised by a few things; Jeremy and Rich told me to post to the list
> to ask about them.  I did a quick check through the mail archives and
> didn't see anything about this; forgive me if this has already been
> covered -- please point me in the right direction and I'll go read... :-)
> 
> ------
> 
> 1. The boost_all.zip unzips itself into the current directory (.) -- not
> into a subdirectory.  This is typically considered fairly anti-social
> behavior.  Indeed, I unzipped boost_all.zip in one of my source
> directories, realized what happened, grumbled about it, and then had to
> move all the extracted files and directories into their own subdirectory.
> 
> --> RECOMENDATION: Have boost_all.zip extract to its own subdirectory.
> 
[snip]
> 5. There does not appear to be a version number anywhere in boost.
> Version numbers are good for multiple reasons:
> 
>    a. They are very handy for end-users who don't follow the active
>       development of a product -- they can easily tell when they need to
>       download the next release.
>    b. When you have multiple copies of a product installed in your tree,
>       it is very handy to have the directory (or some file in that
>       directory) say what version it is.  Indeed, if you have multiple
>       copies, how are you to know which one to use?  Which one is "the
>       latest version"?  (This is really only relevant if the
>       "libs" subdirectory isn't meant to be centralized, and everyone has
>       their own copy)
>    c. Chances are that the sysadmin or end user who installed boost won't
>       remember what version they initially downloaded.  GNU has
>       more-or-less standardized the "name-number" directory name notation,
>       such as "boost-1.0.3".
>    d. When extracting from the distribution, it is social to not overlay
>       an old [and presumably working] installation.  i.e., as a sysadmin,
>       I would want to install boost in a non-default directory first, test
>       it out, and then make it the default only after I am sure that it
>       works.
> 
> --> RECOMENDATION: Add some kind of version number into boost.
> 

I am a Linux user, and as an end user of boost, I would prefer to have
boost distributed in a .tar.gz file with the files in a versioned
subdirectory.  e.g. The current version would be boost-1.18.0.tar.gz and
extract into boost-1.18.0.  The reason I would prefer to have the
version on the extraction directory is to facilitate having multiple
versions on my system.  e.g. I can extract 1.18.0 into
/usr/include/boost-1.18.0 and also have /usr/include/boost-1.17.0.  I
then would create a symlink /usr/include/boost that points to the
current version.  Also, if my code depends on a specific version of
boost, I can write #include <boost-1.17.0>

I think distributing a .zip file that doesn't extract to a subdirectory
is a good idea also, that is what Windows users expect from .zip files.

--Dan Nuffer