Re: [jamboost] Build request interface

From: David Abrahams (david.abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-06-14 05:59:43

From: "David Abrahams" <david.abrahams_at_[hidden]>

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Abrahams" <david.abrahams_at_[hidden]>
>
> > > Oh... that would only require that target names do not clash with
> toolset
> > and
> > > build variants
> >
> > ...or that there's a way of disambiguating...
>
> namely, explicit specification of the property name for implicit features
> which conflict with target names: <toolset>borland

Y'know,

Putting gristed names in the command-line really sucks. I can't count the
number of times I've written

-sBUILD=<cxxflags>blah

and unintentionally created a file called "cxxflags"

I mean, really: shouldn't we be using something like

bjam gcc stlport-4.5.3 --inlining=off ...

In which case for the non-implicit features we should be internally
translating --feature=value into <feature>value. My only real question is
whether we need an additional level of namespacing for feature settings.
Something like --with-, e.g.

bjam gcc --with-inlining=off

Just to keep them out of the way of "global" command-line options.

If it weren't for existing code I'd suggest dropping grist right now and
using feature=value internally ;-)

-Dave