Re: [boost] [svn/git/hg] Support for modularization of Boost?

Subject: Re: [boost] [svn/git/hg] Support for modularization of Boost?
From: Dave Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-04-04 12:05:22

on Tue Apr 03 2012, Beman Dawes <bdawes-AT-acm.org> wrote:

> As far as I can see, scaling Boost up to a much larger number of
> libraries implies decentralization and decoupling, probably in the
> form of per-library modules or something similar.

Quite so.

> Modularization seems to have been missed in the discussions of
> Subversion, Git, and Mercurial. Do distributed version control systems
> in general and Git in particular have any important
> advantages/disadvantages over svn for highly modularized projects?

Aside from the fact that boost is already modularized in Git, you mean?
;-)
http://github.com/boost-lib

> Please, let's not waste everyone's time with a rehash of general DCVS
> vs CCVS pros and cons. We have beat that to death. Let's focus this
> thread on modularization support, particularly as it applies to Boost.

Well, let's see... I guess *if* you want to treat modules as
sub-modules, Git is a bit more flexible than SVN in that you have both
submodules (roughly like svn externals) and git-subtree (in the next
release of Git, or a separate add-on until then), so you can choose your
poison.

However, I don't think we're (mostly) going to be using either of those
technologies.  Instead, I believe we'll be using 0install to manage the
interactions of related library versions, which will render most such
questions moot.  A library developer will (mostly) be working with only
one repository at a time, and the dependency management system in
0install will take care of acquiring the others.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com