Re: [boost] Proposal for moving Boost to CMake

Subject: Re: [boost] Proposal for moving Boost to CMake
From: David Sankel (camior_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-06-17 04:05:13

On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 8:30 PM, Niall Douglas via Boost <
boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> > * Boost sources would provide a compatible, drop-in replacement for the
> >   'FindBoost' module that is distributed with CMake. A CMake-based
> > application
> >   could point to it and, instead of using the system Boost libraries,
> Boost
> >   targets would be built from source as part of the user build.
>
> Instead of nasty cmake 2 era FindBoost(), why can't end users use the
> modern cmake 3 pattern:
>
> ```
> find_package(boost COMPONENTS asio REQUIRED)
> target_link_libraries(myprogram PRIVATE boost::asio)
> ```
>
> No cmake innovation needed to do this. This is 100% vanilla cmake 3.
>

Thanks for pointing this out. This is exactly what I had in mind.

> BTW David if you do decide to go down this route, you and the Steering
> Committee should seriously consider contracting Stephen Kelly to advise
> on doing this properly. He's the primary architect of cmake 3's
> improvements. He knows more about how to do this right than *anybody* on
> this list.
>

Thanks for the suggestion.