Re: [boost] Announcement: Faber, a new build system based on bjam

Subject: Re: [boost] Announcement: Faber, a new build system based on bjam
From: Stefan Seefeld (stefan_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-11-30 13:55:25

On 30.11.2017 08:37, Richard Hodges via Boost wrote:
>
> Have you tried getting bjam to correctly build boost for c++14 on iOS for a
> specific version of iOS, as a universal library?
>
> It's a dark art.

No doubt.

> Have you tried to build for emscripten? (internal rules do not work).

I haven't. But with Faber I explain how to

* define new file types (e.g. "ams.js")
* define new tools (e.g. "emscripten")
* define implicit rules (e.g. how to build an "ams.js" file from a "C++"
file)

And these are the basic ingredients you need to be able to *extend*
Faber to support additional tools and targets.

> I can't even find a reasonable instruction manual to describe how bjam
> works. Before building a front end for it, perhaps better to document what
> is already there.

I mentioned earlier that I think we should discuss "b2" rather than
"bjam". But it is indeed "bjam" that Faber is a frontend to. Faber is at
the same level as b2 / Boost.Build, as it tries to offer the same
functionality. And while Faber is a very young project, and its
documentation is very sparse, I'm hoping to fill in the missing bits to
make it easy for users to find answers to the above questions of how to
extend it to support additional languages and tools.

I'm skipping your other examples, not because they aren't important, but
because the answer is the same: there are many hooks that allow you to
plug in platform- and tool-specific extensions and to fine-tune the way
Faber operates.

It's my hope that as Faber evolves, people will contribute support for
additional tools, languages, platforms. There obviously is a lot to be
done, so for this to succeed it needs to become a community project.

Stefan

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