Re: [boost] Cmake

Subject: Re: [boost] Cmake
From: Stefan Seefeld (stefan_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-06-24 17:02:12

On 24.06.2017 12:29, Peter Dimov via Boost wrote:
> Stefan Seefeld wrote:
>
>> To be honest, I don't quite understand 2). Why do you want to support
>> building boost (or parts of it) as an integral part of something else ?
>
> That's a common workflow. Your (non-Boost!) library or project keeps
> all of its dependencies in ext/ and "consumes" them from there using
> add_subdirectory from CMake. This is what boost-cmake-demo-2 shows.
> This is not a way to support building Boost, this is a way to support
> using Boost libraries as part of some user project, without needing to
> build and install (the entire) Boost.
>
>> Modularity and encapsulation doesn't seem to have any value to you,
>> or does it ?
>
> Not sure what you mean here. You ask me why do I want to support
> building only parts of Boost,

No, that wasn't my question.

> then ask me whether modularity has any value to me. You must be using
> a meaning of the word "modularity" with which I am not familiar.

The workflow you promote (as far as I understand it) builds (parts of)
Boost as an integral part of a user project that depends on (parts of)
Boost. The lack of modularity (and more importantly: encapsulation) here
is exactly the same lack of modularity I deplore in Boost itself: Rather
than building, packaging, and testing the different components
independently of one another (and then let them "consume" the
prerequisites as pre-built entities), you promote building everything as
a single monolithic entity.
While I can see that some people would like the extra control that
provides, I also see lots of problems with this approach.
(And the fact that some of Boost is header-only is entirely irrelevant
to my argument. If there is nothing to build there is nothing to build.)

        Stefan

-- 
      ...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...