Re: [boost] configure

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-02 06:41:31

on Tue May 01 2007, Richard Hadsell <hadsell-AT-blueskystudios.com> wrote:

> Doug Gregor wrote:
>
>>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 agree.  It's probably fine for common cases.  I only think the docs 
> should not offer hope of configuring with an alternate compiler (at 
> least, one that is not in the user's path) by describing environment 
> variables that seem to have no effect.
>
> BTW, it did the job of finding the installed Python, which is in itself 
> an improvement.

FWIW, Boost.Build itself now has very sophisticated
"installed-Python-finding" code.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com
Don't Miss BoostCon 2007! ==> http://www.boostcon.com