Re: [boost] [modularization] spirtit -> serialization

Subject: Re: [boost] [modularization] spirtit -> serialization
From: Peter Dimov (lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-06-15 08:44:49

Andrey Semashev wrote:

> What you mean why? Submodules are a constant pain to deal with. They don't 
> allow the complete history of the library, they don't allow synchronized 
> operations on them (e.g. do changes to multiple submodules in a single 
> commit/push), adding or removing them requires privileges. In Log I have 
> at least 6 glue headers, I don't want to deal with 7 different repos if 
> they are extracted.

I understood Vicente to mean a sub-sub-module. These don't have their own 
repos. They are a subdirectory in an existing repo, and have the directory 
structure of a module.

date_time/
    include/
    src/
    test/
    serialization/
        include/
        src/
        test/

boostdep will show this as date_time~serialization (like 
numeric~conversion).

> I think there was a proposal not long ago to track dependencies based on 
> headers, pretty much like boostdep does. Then we only need to mark the 
> optional headers in some metadata files and there you go.

Tracking headers instead of modules has its own disadvantages. The module 
levels report, for example, would no longer make sense, as parts of the same 
module would need to be at level 0 and other parts at level 11. In addition, 
if you include the right header of module X you'd be fine, and if you 
include the wrong header, you'll bring in the world. In another addition, if 
the right header of X is changed to include a wrong header from X, you'll 
suddenly start depending on the world.

The current report is more stable. You can change includes within the same 
module without affecting it, and you can include another header from the 
same module without affecting it. One can argue that it's not "correct", but 
it's more useful. My module is on level 7, can I use this? It's on level 4, 
so it'd probably not be much of a problem. That other thing? It's on 9, so 
perhaps not.