Re: [boost] Status of Visual Studio 2017 support

Subject: Re: [boost] Status of Visual Studio 2017 support
From: Tom Kent (lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-02-20 22:33:37

On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 7:50 AM, degski via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
wrote:

> On 20 February 2017 at 04:25, Olaf van der Spek via Boost <
> boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> >
> > Wouldn't it be much simpler if you let the user pick the right dev
> > environment prompt from the start menu and have all stuff available
> > without having to call extra scripts?
>
>
> I fully agree. If one develops with VS20XX on Windows and one is unable to
> pick and start a dev environment, it then seems doubtfull that anyone has
> any use for  a (generally) complex collection of libraries (and terse
> documentation) like Boost.
>

I strongly diagree with that. The primary use case for windows developers
with visual studio is as a user of the headers and .lib/.dll files that
come out of boost, inside their project files (configured with a gui to add
include/library paths). Most users do not need boost build except for the
step where they need to create the compatible static/dynamic libraries that
they will later use. The issue here for most of them is that the current
boost-build can't build libraries that are compatible with VS2017.

The command line usage to build the boost libraries from the ground up
needs to be dead-simple, so that it can be followed even by developers who
don't know what an environmental variable is.

Tom