Re: Minimal Boost.Jam

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-01-03 00:49:09

Alan Gutierrez wrote:

>> > I'm beginning to see how Jam creates dependencies. I don't have
>> > the vocabulary to describe it yet. There are types, they have
>> > rules for creation, and if one is missing... I'm watching the
>> > build process with --debug-generators on and it explains a lot.
> 
>> ... and if you're watching generators, you're strictly in the BBv2
>> domain, at a much higher level than that of Boost.Jam. It
>> actually explains little or nothing about the way Jam creates
>> dependencies.
> 
> I'm new to modern C++. With Java, I found that it wasn't until
> I'd gotten serious about Ant, that I could be an effective
> programmer.
>
> I expect that I'm going to have to know BBv2 in a little more
> depth than the designers might expect. I'm cool with that as a
> user.

Lots of people who never use or have even heard of BBv2 are very
effective with modern C++. If that's what you want to learn, I support
you, but don't harbor any illusion that it will help you to be an
effective C++ programmer unless the specific design goals of BBv2 happen
to align very closely with your mission-critical needs, and even then
I'd say it would be a minor contribution to your effectiveness with C++.

> I know that the user will have the interpreter installed. I don't
> have to send them out looking for cygwin, Perl, or Python. 

We'll see. There's talk about rebuilding BBv2 on top of Python.

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