Re: [boost] configure (Was: Building Boost 1.34.0 libraries with bjam)

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-02 04:44:08

Doug Gregor wrote:

> On Apr 30, 2007, at 3:29 PM, Vladimir Prus wrote:
>> Richard Hadsell wrote:
>>> First, the environment variables seemed to have no effect on the
>>> user-config.jam.  When I ran bjam afterward, it still used the
>>> default
>>> installed g++ on my system.  So in user-config.jam I changed
>>> 'using gcc
>>> ;' to 'using gcc : 3.4.4 : /opt/gcc344/bin/g++344 ;'.  (This was
>>> similar
>>> to a 'using' statement that I saw in a comment in
>>> tools/build/v2/user-config.jam.)
>>
>> I'm starting to wonder if "configure" script being shipped with
>> Boost is
>> a good idea. The idea is to make standard "./configure && make"
>> work, however,
>> as above posting shows, "configure" is associated with various
>> expected behaviour, and unless we want to duplicate all such
>> behaviour,
>> we can end up confusing users.
> 
> While we should probably fix this behavior of "configure" to do the
> same thing as an autoconf-generated "configure", I don't think that
> this problem makes having a "configure" script any less of a good
> idea. The "configure" script handles the common case very well; it's
> much easier for people accustomed to *nix software than bjam will
> ever be.
> 
> Let me put it this way: since I wrote the "configure" script for
> Boost, the number of times I've been told that Boost is too hard to
> build (e.g., at conferences and workshops) has decreased
> *drastically*. bjam is powerful, but it's non-traditional. For all of
> the failures of autotools (and there are many!), *nix programmers
> understand how to build autotools-based projects and can do it very,
> very easily. "./configure && make && make install" is enough for the
> vast majority of the open source projects in the world.

I'm not sure "./configure && make && make install" as it is now is
better than providing a single "build.sh" script. At least, name "build.sh"
does not come with (implied) promise to be like configure in any respect.

For another example, trying to use Boost's configure in buildir != srcdir
scenario, that is going to some directory and saying "<boost-src-dir>/configure"
does not seem to work either, and this is commonly used feature of auto*.

- Volodya