[boost] boost organization and installation

From: Noel Yap (yap_noel_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-05-01 16:26:04

Please pardon my ignorance.  Being new to boost, I
have preconceived notions of how free software
"should" be.  I will try not to let them taint my
questions.

I think distributing boost in pieces would increase
stability (since newbies to Jam would quite easily
know what hasn't built), ease configuration management
of software that uses boost (since it's easier to know
what uses what has changed), and decrease the traffic
about autoconf/automake/make vs Jam (since those
projects that need to use Jam can do so while the rest
can use autoconf/automake/make).  So, my question is,
"Why is boost distributed as one whole library rather
than distributing each piece separately (as Jakarta
does)?"

My particular situation is that I want to use only the
concept-checking portion of boost but I feel I'm
forced to install everything since I'm not sure if the
portion I want is dependent on any other portion
(without going through the implementation which, I
think, is counter-productive to what concept-checking
encourages).

IMHO, at the very least, I should expect boost to
build OOTB without any errors.  If any portion of it
doesn't, then the particular version that I have,
boost-1.27.0, shouldn't be labeled "stable".  If,
however, it's not building due to my particular
environment, then I think this is a reason to
investigate using autoconf/automake/make since I've
had no problems building and installing the myriad
software that use them.  I'm very surprised that noone
has yet (to the best of my knowledge) attempted to use
the more standard tools for boost.  If I have time,
I'll try to do this at least for the portion(s) that I
want to use.  Meanwhile, if I am mistaken and someone
has attempted to do this, can they step forward and
brief me on their findings?

Thanks,
Noel

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness
http://health.yahoo.com