Re: [boost] [Ann] Boost and Google Summer of Code 2007

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-03-02 18:57:51

Michael Marcin wrote:
 >
> Speaking of tools...
> 
> I like Boost.Build a lot but a major stumbling block for integrating it 
> into our company is that our programmers are mostly familiar with IDE 
> environments like CodeWarrior, Visual Studio, XCode, etc.  A program 
> that could transform a bbv2 project into IDE projects would make the 
> barrier to adoption much smaller.  Especially if that tool was 
> extensible so new modules could be added to support different IDEs.

You could use MPC (make project creator).  It's a set of perl scripts that 
generate native makefiles for various platforms -- various solution files for 
VC*, nmake, borland make, Makefiles for *nix, etc.  This is the system used to 
maintain makefiles for ACE/TAO which is ported to tons of platforms.  You can 
download the tool from:

info     --> http://www.ociweb.com/products/mpc
download --> http://www.ociweb.com/products/mpc/down.html

Someone of the folks at OCI previously put together a set of boost project 
files.  Those are in the vault at:

http://www.boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?PHPSESSID=kk5srbfv8nefn8mhg7h7v8qan5&direction=0&order=&directory=Miscellaneous

Note, I haven't tried the Boost files, but I've used MPC on cross-platform 
projects -- it's a nifty solution.

As for SoC maybe we could tranlate bbv2 into MPC and use MPC to generate 
native files -- essentially using it as the 'compiler backend'.  Not sure if 
there would be too much overlap there with bbv2, but it would be worth looking 
at as an approach.

Jeff