Re: [boost] "I want everything" should build "out of the box" (on Windows)

Subject: Re: [boost] "I want everything" should build "out of the box" (on Windows)
From: Christopher Jefferson (chris_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-07-28 08:50:32

On 28 Jul 2009, at 11:46, Vladimir Prus wrote:

> KTC wrote:
>
>> Users on Microsoft Windows should be able to build boost with
>> everything, both in terms of all supported variants and all boost
>> libraries, with a single command to bjam assuming they have all the
>> optional supporting libraries available.
>>
>> An user download boost, and want to build all the libraries that  
>> require
>> building go read the Getting Started Guide
>> <.../getting_started/windows.html#invoke-bjam> and see the after  
>> getting
>> bjam they use the command
>>   bjam --build-dir=build-directory toolset=toolset-name
>> --build-type=complete stage
>>
>> So they enter that into the command prompt and see lots of warnings  
>> and
>> notes about missing optional components. The warnings and notes  
>> itself
>> is fine and informative. Actually, it's incomplete as it stand as it
>> doesn't tell the user about Boost.IOStreams optional component
>> requirement of bzip2 & zlib headers. Okay, the user go and install  
>> all
>> the optional components the warnings and notes tell them. After
>> installing Python, ICU (building it first), Expat (building it  
>> first),
>> and MPI (say MS-MPI), they try again. This time with the command  
>> becoming
>>   bjam --toolset=... --build-dir=... --build-type=complete - 
>> sHAVE_ICU=1
>> -sICU_PATH="..." -sEXPAT_INCLUDE="..." -sEXPAT_LIBPATH="..."
>> -sBZIP2_SOURCE="..." -sZLIB_SOURCE="..." stage
>>
>> Nope, MPI requires modification of user-config.jam or building it  
>> on its
>> own with --with-mpi. Why? No other optional components build that  
>> way.
>> So they look to see how they do that, and does it.
>
> Do you actually want Boost.MPI? I kinda expect anybody who wants to  
> use
> Boost.MPI to already have MPI installed.

Then, why not have boost try to detect MPI, and then build/install  
Boost.MPI in that case automatically?

On Mac OS X, MPI is installed as a system library, yet I still have to  
document and describe the unusual procedure required to install  
boost.MPI to users. This single feature has left us close to dumping  
Boost.MPI in favour of another option.

Chris