Re: [jamboost] Plans?

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-12-11 11:55:26

Rene Rivera <grafik666_at_[hidden]> writes:

> No. I was in favor of "source", for various reasons. But I'm not too
> stuck on the name ;-) ... I can live with "alias".

I don't have a position. "source" is fine with me.

>>I think we clarified that NT always requires "dll".
>>However, Python extensions can be called "pyd" as long as we're not
>>using cygwin Python.
>
> For this I would like to see a generic variable-value selection mechanism.
> I'm not sure how it works now (I'll look briefly tomorrow), but setting and
> getting "arbitrary" variables based on combinations of platform, toolset,
> feature+value, feature, and the inverses of all those is something that
> would make writting toolsets much easier.

Not sure what you have in mind here. Could you toss out a few toy
examples to illustrate?

>>I'd be pleased to help. Right now I'm just trying to get started
>>writing a CUJ article on Boost.Python. I should be able to mix in
>>some BBv2 work.
>
> I'm somewhat busy, but I can spend some time on this. Can't help on MSVC,
> but I can certainly decipher the current GCC toolset for you if needed.

I think I can help with MSVC. I think a few other people have
contributed to that toolset definition.

BTW, I've been sitting on some thoughts about how to do toolsets for
some time, and I'd like to make sure they are considered:

I think if every toolset ends up looking like the GCC toolset does
today, people will find it extremely difficult to add new ones. We
need to work on the interface for toolset definition.

* Toolsets should be like single-module classes. Maybe some new
infrastructure is needed to support Java-style module files which
define a class and nothing else.

* I believe that some core actions can be re-used for many toolsets.
This may be especially important for action modifiers, e.g. suffixes
which capture the output of the action.

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