Re: [boost] Revisiting the Directory Structure Proposal

From: Jens Maurer (Jens.Maurer_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-02-13 17:10:33

Beman Dawes wrote:
> There are some things we can do to improve human discoverablity.  Put the
> header files in boost-root/include/boost instead of boost-root/boost, for
> example.

Sounds good, except that it violates the "optimally branched" requirement.

> Do you think those subdirectories should always be used, even if they just
> contain a single file?

Hm... Looking at the current libs/rational/, making subdirectories
mandatory seems to violate the "optimally branched" requirement.  Though
you may argue that there are still a few things missing in rational,
for example more paranoid tests.  On the other hand, if we want to have
automatic detection of all mandatory source files (for our build system),
we must e.g. group those under "src" to not confuse them with e.g.
examples.

>   In the past I've argued that this was overkill,
> but I'm wavering.  Even the simplest library, which starts out with a
> single doc file (say index.htm) and a single test file (say foo_test.cpp),
> will often grow to have additional docs and tests.  And always having the
> directory structure does aid automated tools, and does aid human
> discoverability.

I tend to agree.

> I also have a sense that having sub-namespaces follow the same pattern as
> the sub-domain.

Yes, of course.

>    But I guess that doesn't have to be decided right now - we
> are having a hard-enough time just with directories.

We can decide the first such case ("numeric" ?) and then add a general
rule for it.
 
> How about this?  Using the same format as John's "The Directory Structure"
> table, add your proposal to his paper.  Don't remove or change John's
> table, just add your own.

Done.  I hope I've separated my part clearly enough from John's.

Jens Maurer