Re: [boost] Boost building with CMake

From: Michael Caisse (boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-10 19:21:10

David Abrahams wrote:
> on Wed May 09 2007, Michael Caisse <boost-AT-objectmodelingdesigns.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> I would hate to see great effort in switching if the source of the
>> complaints are from a user group that would also have trouble
>> getting Apache's Xerces-C going.
>>     
>           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> I don't understnad the reference.  Could you explain please?
>
>   
I find that many people simply complain about having to build a library. If it
doesn't just work from the installer... then some people I've worked with seem
to think it is "hard". I've seen this with Xerces-C for example. There are
perfectly good instructions for a variety of platforms on how to get it going.
Each platform has it's own twist, but if you follow the directions and use your
brain every-once-in-awhile you will have a library and some header files you can
use.

Using Xerces as an example (the use standard build tools)... in their bug database there
are currently 73 active bugs for component 'Build'. There have been 409 issues
since April 2004. These issues range the gambit of makefile dependency problems,
installation copy issues, can't build with compiler make/model, link order, make
clean 'degrees', and a variety of windows doesn't do make. Picking a different
set of build tools does not eliminate problems... even if they are tools *everybody*
knows. In this case it has opened up a whole set of build issues that Boost
doesn't have: "My flavor of a build environment (make, nmake, VC project...)
isn't working the way I think it should". 

I have had no problems at all building with BBv2 in my own projects (which include
custom generators for home-grown code generators). I am encouraged to see
organizations such as Sandia adopting BBv2 and suspect that if it is abandoned
by Boost it will be picked up by another OpenSource team of developers.

Eric Niebler and others have clearly articulated the requirements for a boost oriented
build system; however, I haven't seen what problems are trying to be solved. The one
issue continually reported is expending precious resources on build-tools. I
personally don't think the problem goes away... it just shifts from
something you control to supporting work-arounds for a host of other build systems.

I've only been using BBv2 for a few months and just like I don't know the internals
of gmake.... I don't know the internals of BBv2. This discussion has made me point
emacs at jam-src and the *.jam files... who knows, perhaps someday I'll be able to
contribute more than just a 'rant'.

Sorry about the long post  (0;

Best Regards -

-- 
----------------------------------
Michael Caisse
Object Modeling Designs
www.objectmodelingdesigns.com