Re: [boost] Re: Customer Friendlier Boost Installation

From: Rob Stewart (stewart_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-31 16:28:01

From: David Abrahams <dave_at_[hidden]>
> Rob Stewart <stewart_at_[hidden]> writes:
> > From: David Abrahams <dave_at_[hidden]>
> >> "Hendrik Schober" <SpamTrap_at_[hidden]> writes:
> >> > David Abrahams <dave_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> It's currently:
> >> 
> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> *** If you don't need Boost.Python, you can ignore this section  ***
> >                                                                  ^
> > Add a semicolon.
> 
> These are not supposed to be sentences.  The semicolon adds nothing.
> If I were trying to follow rules for writing English prose the ***s
> would have to go too.

You capitalized the first word in the first line, but not the
first in the second line.  Thus, I took them as related clauses
needing a semicolon.  You could capitalize the first word of the
second line and it would work well enough, too.

> >> Well, no, but telling you that we found 4471 targets and we're
> >> updating 1123 of them has to be more cryptic than helpful!
> >
> > How about something along these lines:
> >
> >    Found 4471 items to build, of which 3348 were already current.
> >    Updated 1123 items.
> 
> Not really accurate.  Most of the items are sources (headers, even),
> so they're not "items to build."  They're just nodes in the dependency
> graph.

I suggested two things in the above.  One part explains why some
weren't updated.  The other tried to find an alternative for
"targets" which you suggested was too cryptic.  Is the rest
acceptable once a good "targets" alternative is found?

   Found 4471 dependencies, of which 3348 were already current.
   Updated 1123 dependencies.

> > There's always the old standby approach of printing, in
> > succession, the following strings:
> >
> >    "\r-"
> >    "\r\"
> >    "\r|"
> >    "\r/"
> >    repeat
> >
> > That avoids spewing thousands of lines or characters of output,
> > yet gives active feedback.
> 
> Does that really work reliably and portably, or are some people going to see
> 
>   -\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/-\|/....

I suppose that there might be a dumb terminal emulator that won't
do the right thing, but I wouldn't expect that to be at all
common.  Even emacs's shell mode, for which $TERM is "dumb,"
works (tested using

   printf "testing -"; sleep 1; printf "\rtesting \\"; sleep 1; printf "\rtesting |"; sleep 1; printf "\rtesting /"; sleep 1; printf "\rtesting...done\n"

from bash).

-- 
Rob Stewart                           stewart_at_[hidden]
Software Engineer                     http://www.sig.com
Susquehanna International Group, LLP  using std::disclaimer;