Re: [boost] CMake Announcement from Boost Steering Committee

Subject: Re: [boost] CMake Announcement from Boost Steering Committee
From: Paul Mensonides (pmenso57_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-07-21 00:26:01

On 7/20/2017 2:35 PM, Jared Grubb via Boost wrote:

2c:

> Having the SC step in now was a good move. At some point, arguments like "tabs vs spaces" stop going anywhere because people dig in (often for good reasons, on both sides), and it's easy to stalemate -- although I think the community was moving towards cmake consensus naturally, based on the recent discussions.

Only a small part of the community engaged in that discussion.  Some of 
us didn't bother to engage because our opinion was already being voiced 
by others.  There was no vote across the developers or even the mailing 
list as a whole.  There was just (yet another) random argument on the 
mailing list that carries no usable statistical information at all.

>> El jul. 18, 2017, a las 17:22, David Stone via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]> escribió:

>>  From where I am sitting, CMake is the clear winner of the "build system
>> war". Regardless of how you personally feel about the technical merits, it
>> is hard to argue that Boost as a project and a community is not better off
>> due to this change.
>>
>> To some people, this seems out of the blue. To me, this seems inevitable.
>> There have been many discussions on the Boost mailing list over the past
>> months (years, even) about having CMake be a requirement for new libraries
>> and using it as the default build system. We, as a community, pride
>> ourselves on keeping up with modern software development practices. In C++,
>> that increasingly means using CMake.

Technical merit is all that matters.  We shouldn't be following the 
popular vote of the unwashed masses.  Boost should be leading--which is 
really what Boost was about--not "reaching the most people."

>> If you imagine two possible futures: one in which Boost uses CMake as the
>> build system and one in which it uses b2, which future do you imagine is
>> better for Boost in the coming years?

What is better is for Boost to return to what it once was--a bastion of 
pioneering innovation that pushed the state of the art.  That implies 
that "doing things the way everybody else does just because" is not an 
argument.

Sadly, Boost appears to me to have progressively degenerated and is 
rapidly approaching mediocrity.  CMake is just one more step in that 
direction.

The SC can go ahead and implement everything themselves while all the 
people that did all the real work leave.  What a colossal example of 
arrogance and overstepping.  I agree with Vladimir Prus except that I 
wouldn't vote to reelect any of them--including those that have 
contributed to Boost.  And, no, Niall, having done some good does not 
make someone above reproach.

Regards,
Paul Mensonides