Re: [boost] New name of bjam.exe

Subject: Re: [boost] New name of bjam.exe
From: Matthew Chambers (matt.chambers42_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-07-21 13:18:31

  On 7/21/2010 11:42 AM, Paul A. Bristow wrote:
>> On 7/20/2010 1:06 PM, John Maddock wrote:
>>>>> For those reasons, Rene and I have decided that "bjam.exe" should go.
>>>>> We're thinking
>>>>> about naming the executable simply "build.exe", since no other build
>>>>> tool bothered to
>>>>> take it.
>>>> The name bjam is no doubt hard-coded in many build scripts and
>>>> renaming it will create a lot of unnecessary bugs.
>>> Good point.
>> +1 for leaving it "bjam".
> Despite the original name being 'silly', I doubt if changing it now will be worth the costs and confusion.
>
> Would it be better to document 'Boost.Bjam' / 'Boost.Jam' (with just pointers to bjam / Boost.Build docs) so that users
> do eventually find what they want to know?
>
> Perhaps acknowledging the choice of name as 'purely historical' would also help - people always respond well to 'why'.
>
> Paul
>
> PS If this is Boost.Build then would boost.exe be a good name? Typing 'boost' would be good for brand building ;-)
It seems easy to me to avoid confusion and bugs due to changing the name: simply replace bjam with a wrapper executable that calls the real one after first 
warning about use of the deprecated name. At some future point, the wrapper executable may be removed, but it need not be anytime soon (Boost 2.x ;) ).

As for reinforcing the boost brand, I think boostie and boosty are better than boost because they are better distinguished from the Boost libraries themselves.

-Matt