Re: [boost] Why Jam?

From: Chris Little (cslittle_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-02-20 10:11:57

on 2/20/02 8:30 AM, Steve M. Robbins at steven.robbins_at_[hidden] wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 20, 2002 at 08:16:22AM -0500, nbecker_at_[hidden] wrote:
>> Portability.  autoconf+automake require lots of support tools that may
>> not be present on non-unix systems.
> 
> True, but: "jam" is only a build system, while "autoconf+automake" is
> a *configure* and build (and install) system.  They are vastly
> different in scope.
> 
> As for the support tools: newer apples (MacOSX) have them, cygwin is
> available for MSwin, I believe that BeOS has them, and of course all
> unix systems have them.  That covers the systems listed in
> http://www.boost.org/status/compiler_status.html.
> 

I think your reply just emphasizes the original answer.  If my configure and
build system isn't the one that boost is using then what is the lowest
effort to have a boost specific build system?

With Jam you get a building system in one app for your solution you would
need to install a unix shell plus autoconf+automake.

With Jam I need to learn one tool, instead of many.

In any case David has done some excellent work (with more recent help by
others) to provide a tool that solves the problem posed by the original
discussion.

Chris