Re: [boost] Re: [gauging interest] Windows GUI - semi-installer

From: Reece Dunn (msclrhd_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-27 10:54:50

Robert Mathews wrote:

>"Reece Dunn" <msclrhd_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
> > The problem is that the library files generated come to around 520Mb per
> > toolset. Therefore, packaging the *.lib files becomes unrealistic
> > (especially with the countless variations of gcc: is gcc-3.3 version
>3.3.0,
> > 3.3.1, ...?)
>
>Did you see my other post where I addressed that? I'll paste it in here for
>convenience, sorry if the duplication annoys. What do you think?

I did see it, I just hadn't had chance to reply (the other install-related 
thread is getting large and I do have a day job :)).

>    [snip]
>When I compress my directory, I get a 90% reduction in size - more like
>70MB. But that's still too large. However, a single compile model - ie,
>single threaded (debug+release) - takes only 4.6MB, which is easily
>downloadable.
>
>And all programming shops I've been to pick a particular compiler,
>programming model, and then stick with it, so the following idea should
>work:

But what about your curious semi-knowledgeable user who downloads GCC from 
the website as binaries, or selects one from cygwin. You can't say Boost 
supports installing gcc-3.2 and 3.3, but if you have 3.3.1 then you'll have 
to build the libraries manually.

>So, what you'd do it is write a installer stub that displayed a UI
>1) queried for compiler model
>2) queried for compile model (single threaded, multithreaded, static, dll
>etc)
>
>And then took that information and went off and downloaded the correct
>library.

Have you seen my latest post on the other thread. The method I proposed 
supports both pre-built libraries and a guided build to give the user the 
choice. It also opens up the setup program to use cases such as:

1.  I have a copy of Boost 1.32 on my machine that I am just using headers 
for (Boost.Build is too complex!). Now I want to use Boost.RegEx on gcc-4.0, 
but that requires me to use Boost.Build.
   SOLUTION: run setup.exe; select your local Boost distribution, 
Boost.RegEx and gcc-4.0; build the libraries and check the results in a 
friendly summary.

2.  I want a standard version of Boost for a supported (w.r.t. pre-build 
libraries) compiler and don't care about bandwidth as I have a decent 
connection.
   SOLUTION: run setup.exe; select next for all options (will download 
pre-build libraries)!

3.  I want to get the latest CVS version of Boost.
   SOLUTION: run setup.exe; select CVS for download option; use defaults 
(will build the libraries, not download).

4.  I want a standard version of Boost, but have a slow/limited internet 
connection.
   SOLUTION: run setup.exe; select defaults except for generating the 
libraries (select 'build all').

Presto! Everyone is happy :)

Reece Haston Dunn
Software Engineer, Sophos

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