Re: [boost] CMake - one more time

Subject: Re: [boost] CMake - one more time
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-04-20 18:33:02

> 4- It is in fact - I believe - possible to do a "cd doc; make" with
> CMake, but not from the source tree,

<snip>
I believe that thatis what've done with the safe numerics library.

> So what I do now is also that: I am maintaining my CMakeLists.txt, for
> the purpose of having a proper development environment, but it has no
> other purpose at all. Also I have to say that it does not work well with
> this horrible "b2 header": in my cmake, I am hitting the headers of the
> library (in libX/include), and not of the main superproject. My IDE
> shows me 2 different files because of that.

I don't have this problem - I just use the cmake command - include 
directory to refer to the include files of the library I'm working on. 
As far as CMake is concerned, the superproject doesn't exist.  When I 
switch to boost build to run comprehensive tests while I take 10 hours 
off to catchup on my sleep - it creates the headers it needs I think 
automatically.  Or maybe I run b2 headers before I launch it.  Now I 
don't remember.

> I do not like the current state of b2 for many reasons (even though I
> think it could be really a good build system), but CMake is not covering
> many features that are currently required by the boost superproject.
> Until the point where we can consistently build the lib (including the
> possibly many flavor of the same library - STATIC/SHARED at the same
> time, etc),run the tests, and generate the documentation (including the
> possibility to have the boostdoc/quickbook/doxygen toolchain),

I should say that my boost build does all those things.  My complaint is 
that:

a) It's harder to setup than I would hope it to be.
b) Once set up, it's pretty reliable.  But when it breaks it's an easter 
egg hunt to make it work again.

> I do not see any *good* reason to move to cmake.

I'm not proposing abandoning support for CMake.  I'm proposing that we 
officially tolerate the existence of CMake files in boost projects - 
perhaps with some restrictions.

> I have to say this does not scale at all, especially wrt.
<snip>

I think that boost works better as a "federation" rather than a 
"republic".  Our loose rules have permitted things like quickbook to be 
born in the first place.  We'll never agree on certain things:

a) this topic
b) a documentation system
c) other stuff.

We just keep moving on.

Robert Ramey