Re: [jamboost] Building b/jam...

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-06 20:20:17

Rene Rivera <grafik666_at_[hidden]> writes:

>>Suppose I change some of the bjam sources, but not the grammar. Is
>>there some reason the build-to-install procedure is inappropriate for
>>me?
>
> Ahh, I see... There really isn't big reason why you couldn't use the
> build-to-install procedure. But it does have some drawbacks for
> development of bjam...
>
> * There would be no way to build debug version instead of the optimized
> release version. I'll be adding a --debug option to the build.jam. I could
> add an equivalent option to the build.sh and build.bat scripts, but I think
> that just adds more complexity that's not really needed.

Agreed.

> * It will always re-build the bootstrap jam0. Instead of just the
> final bin.*/bjam. I'm assuming here that a developer would already
> have bootstraped beforehand.

It's so fast, I don't really care about that part.

> Question is... Do you think we should simplify the build-to-develop
> procedure also?

I don't think it's neccessary. I can make myself a nice little script
(as I currently have in makedebugjam.bat) so I don't have to worry
about it.

Come to think of it, there is a reason my script does the full
build-to-install process from start-to-finish: it's possible to do
something that works when you already have jam0, but which can't
bootstrap. I wanted to make sure I would always catch those cases. So,
actually, I think avoiding the bootstrap step is a false friend,
especially because it's so fast.

> * For example we could make changes to Jambase to check for the build.jam
> and use that. Eliminating the need for the "-f build.jam".

I have no strong opinion about that.

> * I could also change build.jam to accept something like "--toolset-gcc"
> instead of the longer "-sBOOST_JAM_TOOLSET=gcc".

That sounds friendly ;-)

> Those two changes would make the build-to-develop command:
>
> bjam/jam0 --toolset-gcc <options/targets>

I trust you to make the right choice based on the above feedback.

-- 
David Abrahams
dave_at_[hidden] * http://www.boost-consulting.com