Re: [boost] boost organization and installation

From: Tanton Gibbs (thgibbs_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-05-02 14:04:36

William,

I'm a newbie to Boost, but not to programming or C++, and I would like to
help get the Boost distribution process on its feet.  I realize that the
lack of developer time and support has prevented the emergence of a
distribution system like Boost deserves, but times are changing.  More and
more is being said about Boost in the trade journals, and more and more
programmers are going to want to see what all the hype is about.  Having an
excellent distribution mechanism will keep these newly interested developers
from sighing and giving up when they have to figure out what header files
depend on each other (yes, I know there is a web page, but they still have
to go manually look at it) and it should also alleviate the burden of having
to copy these files to their final destination.  I'm also a big Perl fan and
I think CPAN is an amazing demonstration of how good a distribution system
can get.  Naturally, I don't propose to set up CPAN for Boost.  We need to
take baby steps toward our goal (once we determine what our goal is!).  This
message is just saying that I understand that and am willing to help.  I'll
start poring though the archives looking for what the maintainers need from
a distribution system, since I feel their plight (too few people, too much
to do) as well as what the contributors need( gotta be easy to update! ) and
finally what the users want ( we need to know easily what works (lotsa
tests!), and what does work we want installed for us (with dependencies!) ).
Any help or direction with this task would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Tanton
----- Original Message -----
From: "William E. Kempf" <williamkempf_at_[hidden]>
To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 1:49 PM
Subject: Re: [boost] boost organization and installation

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Abrahams" <david.abrahams_at_[hidden]>
> To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
> Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 12:30 PM
> Subject: Re: [boost] boost organization and installation
>
>
> > Bottom line: you have done nothing other than make insistent suggestions
> > which (though they would make life easier for people like you) would
> > massively complicate life for Boost's volunteer developers and
> > maintainers. Responding to this sort of thing is an enormous waste of
> > bandwidth for people like me, and I'm going to stop now. I request that
> > you do some legwork and find a way to make an actual contribution, or at
> > least stop complaining about the status quo.
>
> Here here!  And again, I'm offering to help coordinate an effort of
> volunteers who wish to create a distribution process as an aside to Boost
> development.  I hope that some of you who have problems with the current
> Boost deployment will take advantage of my offer and are willing to
> volunteer the time and effort that will be required to make this work.
>
> Bill Kempf
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