Re: [boost] [ot] choosing a build system

Subject: Re: [boost] [ot] choosing a build system
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-05-18 14:40:51

Tim Blechmann wrote:
>> I like very much Boost.Build, and I was quite disappointed to hear
>> that there's a plan to move Boost to CMake. Boost is the main user of
>> Boost.Build and I'm a little bit afraid of seeing it disappear, or
>> being less and less unsupported. Even if I perfectly understand the
>> reason of this change: Boost.Build suffers from lack of documentation
>> and lack of popularity, whereas CMake is very well documented and
>> widely used, it leaves me a bitter taste in mouth.
>
> cmake has one huge advantage over scons or boost.build: it is not a
> build system itself, but it populates a build system ... it therefore
> scales quite well (in the contrast to scons).
>
> it also has the nice side effect that it it integrates very well into
> IDEs ... when using kdevelop or qtcreator, you can simply open the
> root CMakeLists.txt file and it will populate a project for you. this
> is the reason, why i ended up using a small cmake build system for my
> boost-related development instead of using boost.build.

Could you post or send me more information on this?

I would like to be able to do the following:

a) make a small library which looks like a boost library with include, 
example, test ...
b) The library would not be a member of boost.
c) But the library would depend upon boost and users of the library
could be expected to have boost installed.
d) Users would be able to
i)  download zip/tar file an expand it anywhere on their system
ii) if necessary build the library
iii) run the test suite and capture the test results
iv) use the library in their own projects.
all without installing additional software.

I've been looking at all the options I can find including Autotools, bjam,
simple make files, shell scripts, and CMake.

Without going into details, I'm currently taking a hard look
at CMake.  I'm going through the documents and experimenting.
(For some reason, the explanations ((such as the are)) for all
the build systems ((exept simple make)) are very opaque to me.
So I would be curious to see what you've been using to make
a small boost dependent project.  Basically, I'm looking for
the lazy man's CMake/Boost template.  I have found the rypll
examples.  These depend up on rypll additions to CMake. Since
the librar(ies) have in mind wouldn't be part of the boost distribution
I would hope I can find a solution which depends only upon
plain vanilla CMake.

Robert Ramey

>
> tim
>
>
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