Re: [boost] Re: Customer Friendlier Boost Installation

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-26 16:00:42

David Abrahams wrote:
> "Peter Dimov" <pdimov_at_[hidden]> writes:
>
>> That aside, FWIW I've found bjam relatively painless to use (once
>> it's present). I didn't even need to specify an -sTOOLS option or run
>> vcvars32.bat IIRC. For the scenario where one already has the
>> headers up and running but doesn't want to "bjam install" the whole
>> package, the main obstacle is figuring out which -sBUILD combination
>> generates "library-sgd-mt-whatever" when autolinking kicks in.
>>
>> Or can bjam figure these out automatically from the target name of
>> "library-sgd-mt-whatever.lib"? It didn't occur to me to try it. ;-)
>
> No, it can't.  The presumption is that -SBUILD="..." specifications
> are higher level than sgd-mt-whatever abbreviated tag strings.  Of
> course, -sBUILD is still pretty awful in v1.  In v2 you just write,
> e.g.
>
>      bjam threading=multi link=static <library-name>
>
> if you want to build a library with specific options.

This is better. But my point is that the linker doesn't tell me anything 
about threading=multi or link=static. It tells me the exact name of the .lib 
file, and I'm supposed to reverse engineer the sgd-mt-whatever string and 
come up with the higher-level options. If I am expected to be able to do 
that, so can Boost.Build, right? It can even get them right the first time. 
I average about 2.5 tries.