Re: [jamboost] Boost.Build and SCons

From: Pedro Ferreira (pedro.ferreira_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-12-14 05:19:07

Hello Steven,

many thanks for your support: it is very welcome and am looking forward 
to try to contribute to enhance SCons as well.

Best regards,

Pedro

Em 13 Dec 2004, às 18:12, Steven Knight escreveu:

>
> Hello Pedro--
>
> I'm very glad you're interested in this sort of integration and would
> be glad to help out to whatever extent I can. Your vision of providing
> another interface is precisely one of things we've tried to allow for 
> in
> maintaining a separation between the Python-script interface layer (the
> SCons/Script/*.py modules) and underlying build engine (everything 
> else).
>
> I'm sure we didn't do a perfect job at keeping clean separation 
> everywhere
> between the build engine and the SCons interface layer, but wherever
> you find a place where it isn't, I'll be very glad to work with you
> (and anyone else who participates) on refactoring things to make sure
> the engine can support multiple interfaces.
>
> One follow-on comment:
>
>> I recently told Volodya I was going to spend some time experimenting
>> the integration between Boost.Build and SCons.
> .
> .
> .
>> The integration with SCons can be done:
>> - at the SCons.Environment level, calling builder methods to create BB
>> virtual targets
>> - at the lower level Node ADT interface
>>
>> I really don't like SCons Enviroments because they are too cluttered
>> with functions, are too unwieldy, load all tools by default, etc.
>> So I prefer the second approach: it provides all the functionality 
>> bjam
>> provides (and more) and fits very well with BB's architecture.
>
> The issue I see is that Environments are pretty integral to the SCons
> ability to build Nodes. My guess is that you'll need something that
> at least resembles an Environment closely enough to interact with key
> engine subsystems.
>
> That said, I agree with you that SCons Environments have become too
> heavyweight. To that extent, we will be cleaning up how Environments
> handle Tools at some point in the (relatively near) future, after 0.97
> is out.
>
> I'd be very interested if your project (or anyone else) came up with
> some sort of "minimal Environment," for example, that still made things
> build correctly. What I'd be inclined to do is fold that into the 
> SCons
> build engine itself, so there's a relatively lightweight Environment 
> base
> class appropriate for all interfaces, and the "cluttered" Environment
> subclass(es) can be ignored by interfaces like yours that don't need
> the extra stuff.
>
> Let me know if you have any questions or there are things I can do
> to help.
>
> --SK