Re: Revitalization

From: Boris Kolpackov (boris_at_[hidden])
Date: 2022-12-06 12:14:52

Ruben Perez via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]> writes:

> 1. Dependency management. There is a place where I've had
>     to list my indirect dependencies. Depinst takes a lot
>     of time to run. Depending on OpenSSL is a pain. If we're
>     to attract any young devs, we can't say "uf, a dependency,
>     that's going to be a problem".
>
> 2. Bjam. I love B2, I think it's much better than CMake
>     in a lot of things. But the language doesn't help.
>     The same set of concepts, but exposed in a modern
>     scripted language (say Python, Starlark, JS)
>     would be great.

We (the build2 project) have been working on this problem for
the past 8 years and the result is pretty usable, IMO. In
particular, we have Boost packaged[1] and the result builds[2]
all its dependencies, including OpenSSL and ICU, from source on
all the major platforms/compilers using build2.

The package manager provides all the necessary mechanisms, such
as conditional dependencies, dependency configuration, etc.[3], to
solve what is (IMO and as echoed by our users) the biggest barrier
to Boost's adoption: it's insane library dependence. And by "insane"
here I don't mean just "heavy" (which is definitely the case), but
also literally, as in, some of the dependencies just do not make
any sense. Like libboost-multi-index depending on libboost-regex
and thus ICU.

Besides the build system and package manager, the build2 project
also provides the CI service that doesn't attempt to cobble together
something usable from what's out there and get by with whatever free
resources happened to be currently available from GitHub. The result
is a reliable and stable service that covers[4] all the major platforms
and compilers, including legacy ones.

So I believe the technology is there. The question is whether there
is an appetite for change.

[1] https://cppget.org/?packages=libboost
[2] https://cppget.org/?builds=libboost
[3] https://build2.org/bpkg/doc/build2-package-manager-manual.xhtml#manifest-package-depends
[4] https://ci.cppget.org/?build-configs