Re: [boost] Re: Why Jam?

From: Chris Little (cslittle_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-02-22 23:30:17

on 2/22/02 10:29 PM, Braden McDaniel at braden_at_[hidden] wrote:

> 
> That's not the "truth". Its your opinion, and one that's clearly colored
> by the different requirements of closed-source development. The fact is
> that doing as you describe results in a *lot* of duplicated work. In
> general, open source developers try to avoid duplicating work.
> 
> I think it's unreasonable to ask that Boost users go to all this trouble
> while Boost searches for a "perfect" solution, while an
> imperfect-but-adequate solution could solve a large class of problems
> and keep from imposing all that work.

Braden,

I think you have to remember that Boost's goals aren't necessarily yours.
Boost is an experiment in leading edge C++ design.  The goal isn't
necessarily to create a library that integrates well into your unix centric
view of software development.  In fact there isn't a required set of
platforms that an implementor need to support.

If you want to use Boost in one of your projects then I think that it is up
to you to provide integration for your users.  It is not as if Boost makes
any guarantees about binary or source compatibility (although as a community
I would hope that we minimize the amount we break things while evolve them)
so any project you make will have to bound to a particular Boost version
anyways.

I was happy to see that you have finally volunteered to produce the scripts
that say you need for your uses.  Not only because hopefully it will end
this thread but also it showed that you have stepped forward in the open
source tradition you have been promoting and decided to do the work to fix
something that you want changed instead of just complaining about it.

I'm with Bill on this thread.  Yes, I work in a environment that delivers
pre-built binaries instead of source code and yes, I have similar
restrictions on what software we can install and use (in fact some of the
tools you say we have to be using don't work on all the platforms I develop
for).  In the end it is up to all of us to make Boost work on our platforms
of choice.

Chris