Re: [boost] [Git] Moving beyond arm waving?

Subject: Re: [boost] [Git] Moving beyond arm waving?
From: Rene Rivera (grafikrobot_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-02-08 17:08:06

On 2/8/2011 3:48 PM, Dave Abrahams wrote:
> At Tue, 8 Feb 2011 16:03:33 -0500,
> Beman Dawes wrote:
>>
>> Dave wrote:
>>
>>> You only have to generate a forwarding header when you actually have a new
>>> header file.  Yes, you have to check for the existence of forwarding headers
>>> each time, but that's not the same cost as actually generating them.
>>
>> Forwarding headers have the advantage of working regardless of the
>> filesystem. But many Boost lib developers are running on filesystems
>> that support directory symlinks. Directory symlinks have a lot of
>> advantages; you only have to generate one per library, they are
>> faster, and easier to use with IDE's that let you click on a header to
>> open it. With a forwarding header, you have to do that twice to get at
>> the real header.
>>
>> I've been testing on Windows with boost/filesystem being a directory
>> symlink to ../../libs/filesystem/include/boost/filesystem
>
> Since when does Windows support symlinks?!

Since Windows Vista...

>> and it works smoothly with no changes whatsoever to either by bjam testing or
>> VisualC++ IDE testing.
>>
>> Would it be possible to generate directory symlinks instead of
>> forwarding headers if the filesystem supports them?
>
> Sure!  What filesystem doesn't?  FAT?

And if you only need to link to directories using NTFS junction points 
is an option. And that's available since Win2K.

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