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: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-09-18 04:36:13

On 18 Sep 2014 at 9:25, Stephen Kelly wrote:

> >> 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.
> >> 
> >> Is something similar to this a goal or a non-goal for 'Boost
> >> modularization'?
> > 
> > I have begun weekend work as I said I would on my clang AST parser
> > based C++11-STL-to-Boost bindings generator.
> 
> It's an interesting announcement but this thread seems a strange place for 
> it, as you didn't directly address the thread topic.

No point in announcing something which isn't finished. But it was 
germane to your point, so I mentioned it. I'm annoying with having to 
download and build all of Boost every single bloody time I want some 
small bit of header only Boost for some task, and it wastes enough of 
my productivity I am willing to personally invest in making it go 
away permanently.

> But, I guess you're saying 'for me it's a non-goal'.

No, rather it's a goal for me for the best maintained C++ 11/14 
capable header-only Boost libraries - the ones with maintainers 
active enough that I suspect they will reuse my tooling to achieve 
standalone C++ 11 only usefulness on their own, I just need to put 
the tooling there and they'll do the rest themselves as I am sure my 
Boost pain is not unique. The rest of libraries and the other legacy 
cruft, as everyone knows, in my opinion need to be put out to pasture 
and gracefully deprecated. Growth ~= creative destruction.

Properly modularising all of Boost is an enormous undertaking, even 
with a full time developer exclusively working on it it would take at 
least a year and lots of library maintainers would see breakage, so 
it would be unpopular too. Personally, I think it's a non-starter, 
and the lack of decisive leadership on this issue merely delays the 
inevitable to the detriment of all.

So I'm pressing ahead with my own solution - I specifically want 
single git submodule dependencies, so when I throw together a Boost 
using project I merely need to submodule a single Boost git submodule 
and it just works with no arsing around with bootstrapping or config 
or staging. When it's usable, I'm sure you'll hear from me here.

Niall

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