Re: [boost] To modularize, or not to modularize. What is the plan?

Subject: Re: [boost] To modularize, or not to modularize. What is the plan?
From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2019-05-07 13:55:01

On 5/6/19 11:15 PM, Gavin Lambert via Boost wrote:

> There's no particular reason why a b2 build couldn't do the same thing 
> -- in fact it probably already does.

Right - that's what "b2 headers" does.  b2 headers creates a structure 
of links which maps the original to that which the user uses. But this 
is not a good match for users needs. And users don't want to have to 
deal with b2. This is why my proposal doesn't added any new burden to 
the user.

> So whenever the user runs the "get me a Boost library" command (whatever 
> that turns out to be) it probably has to run a b2 build anyway, so that 
> will just happen.

I'm not seeing this at all. I don't think any solution which requires a 
user to download, build and execute b2 is going to fly.

>>> I don't see why it would need to be any more complex than downloading 
>>> the existing Boost superproject root and doing the equivalent of "git 
>>> submodule update --init" on only the specified submodules, then 
>>> running a b2 build/stage cycle (modified to cope with missing modules).
>>
>> Some would disagree with you.
> 
> To clarify, I don't mean that "regular users" should have to do a full 
> git clone (if they wanted one, they could already do that).  But there 
> are ways to tell git to only download a specific tree without any 
> history, or to just use snapshot archives instead of using git itself.

Hmmm - I can't understand all that the above does and how it does it.

I would hope it would be easy to invoke: Get me boost library X and 
place in directory location Y.  This would boil down to invoking a git 
clone and making the translation from the boost development tree to the 
simpler tree structure that users currently get.

If there is git command that can do this- great! Please post it here.

Robert Ramey