Re: [boost] Boost is supposed to serve *the entire C++ community; it isn't Boost's goal to serve Boost's community*

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost is supposed to serve *the entire C++ community; it isn't Boost's goal to serve Boost's community*
From: Vinnie Falco (vinnie.falco_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-05-19 12:15:21

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 12:01 PM, M.A. van den Berg <thijs_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> This is why I think the monolithic release is no longer a good format, most is
> not a coherent set of libraries that are all usable from a single users
> perspective and most users only need a couple libraries. Various attempts
> have been proposed to reduce dependencies inside boost with the aim to
> make libraries separately downloadable/releasable.

I like the monolithic format. Its easy to get boost onto a system
("sudo apt-get boost" or whatever). And once its there, you have
confidence that you get the whole toolbox should you need it. Its very
convenient when building an application or a library to be able to
grab any part of boost you need and just use it. Once you accept boost
as a dependency then you know anyone using your application or library
will have it available and it broadens the parts you can use.

Even if you only need one part of boost (e.g., asio) what's the big
deal about installing the whole thing? Its just as easy to install all
of boost as it is to install a single library. Some might object that
this is not a sustainable development model and if there were a
thousand other libraries similar to Boost in that they each aggregated
a hundred or more individual libraries into one package then I might
agree.

But the reality is that there is only one boost. Nothing else even
comes in second place. Having a boost dependency as a single
monolithic package with more libraries than you might need at the
moment is a reasonable solution, and one that does not waste 180+
project managers time with trying to make their library compile
without the rest of boost.