Re: [boost] [modularization] Are modular releases a goal or a non-goal?

Subject: Re: [boost] [modularization] Are modular releases a goal or a non-goal?
From: Vladimir Prus (vladimir_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-09-18 01:08:56

On 09/18/2014 12:40 AM, Stephen Kelly wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I can download one monolithic tarball to get Boost 1.56:
>
>   http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.56.0
>
> And I get all of it. There are no separate 'modular Boost' tarballs so that
> I can download what I want and not what I don't.
>
> Compare to Qt which provides both monolithic source tarballs:
>
>   http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/5.3/5.3.2/single/
>
> and modular source tarballs:
>
>   http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/5.3/5.3.2/submodules/
>
> Is something similar to this a goal or a non-goal for 'Boost
> modularization'?

It looks that unless you, or somebody else, writes npm-for-c++, then the huge amount
of modules in Boost will make any such modular tarballs be a disservice to users. It's
must easier to just close everything and remove a couple of components that take up
90% of source size.

(Preemptive snarky comment: Qt does not need npm, since the number of modules is
relatively small, and many of them are truly optional)

- Volodya