Re: [boost] Informal CMake meeting at CPPCon

Subject: Re: [boost] Informal CMake meeting at CPPCon
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-10-02 18:50:33

On 10/2/2017 12:04 PM, Robert Ramey via Boost wrote:
> Thursday 28 Sept 8 AM at CPPCon a small group of us met to talk a little 
> regarding the situation regarding support of CMake by Boost.  I promoted 
> this meeting as I've been concerned that the only discernible results of 
> the recent Boost Steering Committee announcement on the subject was a 
> certain level of antagonism among boost members regarding the subject.
> 
> Participants
> ============
> Robert Ramey (me)
> Rene Rivera
> Vinnie Falco
> Louis Dionne
> David Sankel
> Matt Calabrese
> 
> This was a small but I think a representative group. After some 
> preliminary back and forth, I think we agreed:
> 
> a) Nothing was going change regarding the current build system until 
> there was a real alternative in place.
> 
> b) That we should support serious proposals to implement CMake support 
> within boost.
> 
> c) And that any such proposals should go through the Boost formal review 
> process.  Traditionally, the boost formal review process has never 
> applied to boost tools so this would be a departure from traditional 
> practice.
> 
> d) Questions regarding the scope/implemention of such support for CMake 
> can be handled within the formal review process.
> 
> e) Other questions regarding support CMake and Boost, transition to new 
> system, related requirements on boost libraries, etc. can be better 
> addressed once we have some sort of consensus on the form that CMake 
> support will take.
> 
> I had contacted Paul Fultz who is the only one I know of that has 
> proposed something specific to submit to formal review.  He told me he 
> couldn't do it at the time, but shortly there after posted such a 
> request on the list.  So I guess for now we're on our way.
> 
> My motivation for posting this is to keep the boost community up to date 
> on what's happening so that no one gets overly surprised when things 
> start to happen.  I'm not really soliciting feedback - though it 
> wouldn't surprise me if I get some.
> 
> Robert Ramey

Paul Fultz's work to convert Boost Build jam files to CMake 
CMakeLists.txt files should be valued highly, as well as his bcm CMake 
modules. It is still missing some features, of which the most prominent 
I noticed is lack of support for Boost Build conditional requirements, 
but it is certainly a worthy undertaking. It is possible that no parsing 
can flawlessly convert Boost Build jamfiles to CMakeLists.txt files, but 
the effort is certainly worth the results.