Re: [boost] NuGet packages for boost

Subject: Re: [boost] NuGet packages for boost
From: Ben Craig (ben.craig_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-09-17 17:04:18

> * While we might want help packaging maintainers, do we actually want to
> host package management on Boost? If so, which package management tools?
> There are a number of popular ones out in the wild.
The boost devs certainly can't provide packages for every package 
management tool out there.  There are almost certainly too many.  The 
question then becomes does it make sense to support -any-, and which ones. 
 

If any package managers are going to be supported for Windows, I think 
that the obvious choice for September 2013 is NuGet.  Next year the answer 
may be very different.  I don't know of any competing package managers on 
Windows that have shipped, but I may just be ignorant on this point.

It would be my preference that the packages be hosted on NuGet.org instead 
of boost.org though, as I expect most packages to be in that central 
repository.  I don't know how easy it is for a package in one repository 
to depend on a package in a different repo.

> * How does NuGet relate to Ryppl? AFAIK, NuGet is just for 
Windows/Visual
> Studio users. So while we wish NuGet well, our long term interest is in
> something much broader than any one platform and much broader that just
> package management.
Dave Abrahams had similar concerns in ryppl-dev:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ryppl-dev/aJyyfMftW5E/g9pw6b1NZIUJ

Ryppl does look like it is trying to solve more problems, but NuGet has 
the distinct advantage of having actually shipped.  Nuget is also already 
integrated into Visual Studio.