Re: [boost] CMake Announcement from Boost Steering Committee

Subject: Re: [boost] CMake Announcement from Boost Steering Committee
From: Barrett Adair (barrettellisadair_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-07-19 01:51:09

On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 8:12 AM, Jon Kalb via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
wrote:
>
> The libraries produced by the Boost community have had a greater impact
on the way that the C++ community writes code than any other library
implementation. The focus of the Boost community will always be on the
libraries, but it is undeniable that we are dependent on and often limited
by the infrastructure of our trade. Years ago, the move to Git was
contentious; yet, it was required to improve development. In a similar vein
our build system has become an impediment for many developers and users,
existing and prospective.

[snip]

I have great respect for the Boost.Build project and its developers. Boost
has received incredible mileage from this powerful tool. Perhaps it is only
a matter of fate that Boost.Build has not received the same level of
adoption as CMake.

However, as the author of a Boost library (pending merge), I find the
Boost.Build requirement to be burdensome, even for a header-only library. I
spent many afternoons studying and using Boost.Build, but I still do not
have a solid grasp of it. My experience learning and using CMake was
significantly less frustrating.

As the author and maintainer of an internal distro project that builds and
packages 30+ open source projects, I find the build process for Boost to be
cumbersome and peculiar.

I strongly support the effort to steer Boost development and usage toward
CMake. Ultimately, I believe this is a healthy move for our community.
Additionally, I think the creation of a dedicated mailing list would be
useful for those interested in contributing to this effort. This won't
happen without focused collaboration.

Barrett Adair