Re: [boost] Customer Friendlier Boost Installation

From: Andrey Melnikov (melnikov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-07-05 12:00:05

David Abrahams wrote:
> christopher diggins <cdiggins_at_[hidden]> writes:
> 
>>>>Unfortunately some libraries are not header only and there is easy way to
>>>>tell which libraries require separate compilation / linking steps
>>>>and which
>>>>don't. I would very much like a separate release which only
>>>>contained header
>>>>only libraries.
>>>
>>>Don't you think assembling a separate release of boost just so you can
>>>tell which libraries need to be compiled is a bit of a heavyweight
>>>approach?  Seems to me a little documentation should be sufficient.
>>
>>
>>If there are a significant number of advanced users who, like myself, only 
>>use the header-only libraries, it would mean that there would be an overall 
>>saving of bandwidth. 
> 
> 
> Bandwidth is hardly as valuable as volunteer time, IMO.

I think that splitting Boost in boost-hdronly and boost-libs will help a 
lot. There are a lot of thread or filesystem abstraction layers. But 
such unique libs like boost.lambda and MPL are header only, and can be 
used very easily without building bjam etc. It would be nice to have a 
separate package.

Andrey