Re: [boost] Boost CMake support - Request for Comment

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost CMake support - Request for Comment
From: Gavin Lambert (boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2018-10-10 00:40:19

On 10/10/2018 12:09, mike wrote:
>> It is for such a reason that as soon as you start talking about using
>> CMake for anything else but identifying Boost libraries for the purposes
>> of end-user use of Boost libraries in their own CMake scripts,
> 
> Just consuming precompiled/pre-installed boost libraries in a cmake script
> is already possible thanks to the work of cmake contributors and the people
> providing boost packages for vcpkg, conan and other package management
> systems (some of those contributors are probably also boost library
> maintainers?).
> Those solutions have to keep playing catch up with the latest boost
> release if something significant changes (like name-mangling or a new
> library), but by and large they work quite well. Imho an official boost
>   solution should provide a bit more functionality to justify the effort.

I'm mostly watching this from the sidelines (since other than building 
Boost itself I use neither b2 nor cmake), so take this with a grain of 
salt, but:

I think that "onboarding" the consumption of Boost libraries into Boost 
could be valuable in itself with no need to justify additional 
functionality, simply because it eliminates that catch-up process and 
helps ensure things are correct before release instead of after.  And 
Boost is probably in a better position to track library dependencies.

Having said that, I'm not sure how feasible it is in practice simply due 
to historically package deployment being left entirely to outside 
parties (especially on Linux), thus there being significant variation in 
the wild.