Re: propagation of usage-requirements

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-12-16 20:17:52

Vladimir Prus wrote:
> On Thursday 16 December 2004 18:52, David Abrahams wrote:
>> Vladimir Prus wrote:
>>
>> There ought to be a way to say "these are propagated only to direct
>> dependents." In fact, I think that maybe ought to be the normal case.
> 
> I think it's a conflict between "explicit" and "convenient". No matter what 
> guidelines are there ("explicit is better than implicit", for example), I 
> often find that decision is not easy. In this case, Toon did not like too 
> explicit behaviour. 

If there were a way to say "these are propagated to indirect dependents,
but these others are only propagated to direct dependents," you have the
best of both worlds.

> I think if extra paths will cause problems only for 
> debugging, it's not a big deal.

It's not just about debugging, it's about user experience. The
extra-long and complicated command-lines currently generated by BB don't
leave people with warm fuzzies. Consider the effort already expended
just to get the duplicated library mentions out of the command line.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com