Re: [boost] Re: Boost.Build on IBM, SGI & HP

From: Ross Smith (ross.s_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-10-11 21:17:13

David Abrahams wrote:
> 
> It's strange that you should say that. If you mean the rules that come in
> the Jambase, you can replace any of these with your own definition at any
> time... do you mean rules like DEPENDS, NOTFILE, etc., which form  the core
> Jam funtionality? Why would you want to override them?

Sorry, it's been too long and I can't remember the details. I'll
probably give it another try sometime, but I'm not in any hurry.

Jam may well offer some advantages over make, but I find it difficult to
imagine the advantages being sufficiently overwhelming to overcome the
enormous disadvantage -- from the point of view of anyone I distribute
my code to -- of nonstandard build tools.

The only thing I'm using Boost in at the moment is a personal project
that's sufficiently large and long-term that I'm confident in expecting
Boost to be fairly mature and available in instant-install form (e.g.
RPM) before I'm ready to release. In Boost's current form, I would never
use it in any project intended for either open source or in-house
distribution (i.e. anything involving giving other people my source)
because installing and building Boost is currently far too complicated
to expect people who aren't interested in Boost itself to go through it.

The new build system is intended to fix that, of course. But the same
sort of problem -- nontrivial build process -- is the reason I won't
consider using anything but make + autoconf for my own projects. I don't
want potential users to react with, "You mean I have to install this Jam
thing I've never heard of _too_?" (Distributing Jam along with my code,
as Boost is intending, is more trouble than I'm prepared to go to. Not
to mention being a fast route to the Unix equivalent of DLL hell.)

-- 
Ross Smith .......................................... ross.s_at_[hidden]
Ihug (Auckland, New Zealand) ................... http://www.ihug.co.nz/
           Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, lbh'er ivbyngvat gur QZPN