Boost.Build doc request: more task-oriented material

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-05-23 07:44:05

The docs for Boost.Build are clearly getting a lot better, but I'm still 
having a lot of trouble finding out how to do even the simplest tasks.

The problem is that much of the documentation is reference-oriented rather 
than task-oriented. So to do something like build a variant, the reader 
must go to one place to find out what a variant is, another to find out how 
to specify a variant on the command line, yet another place to find out 
what variants are available, and so forth.

Task-oriented documentation would, in one place, identify the steps the 
user needs to execute to accomplish the task. If the description of a step 
is at all complex, there is a link to the reference docs for that step.

For example, the user docs might have a section:

How to do a release build
-------------------------

To do a "release" build, rather than the default "debug" style
builds, invoke the build like this: bjam ...

This is an example of a build variant. ["build variant" is a link]
See List of Common Variants for other build variants. ["List of
Common Variants" is a link]

Here are the particular tasks I need to accomplish, yet can't because they 
involve pulling together so may different pieces of the current 
documentation:

* How to I specify an additional compiler switch for one compiler from the 
bjam command line? (I want to see the effect of running the regression 
tests with an additional compiler switch.)

* I want to add an additional compiler switch for all compiles with a 
certain compiler. What do I add to the toolset?

* I want to add an additional compiler switch for compiles with version 
1.23 or later of a certain compiler. What do I add to the toolset?

--Beman