[Boost-build] Best Practices Question: Building, Installing, and Using Boost in Corporate Environments

From: Christopher Woods (cwoods_eol_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-11-16 14:50:11

Hello!

I'm rather new to Boost and I'm thinking about starting to use the libraries in some of our software development but I'm a bit lost as to how best to bring Boost into our environment.  I'm looking for any information, tips, best practices, etc... on how to properly incorporate Boost in the environment without overwhelming the other developers.

Some information that may be of help in answering my questions:

- We use MSVC 6.5 (as Boost defines it), MSVC 7.1, and MSVC 8.0
depending on the project.  (There has never been any great push to port
existing and legacy projects to the newer compilers I'm afraid.)


- Depending on the project between 1 and 3 developers are involved.


- I work solo on most of my projects, however some of the
more common aspects of my code are reused in other related projects
maintained by other developers.  If I start using Boost in these areas
then they will need it on their machines as well...


Some starter questions:
1) Is it generally advisable to store a copy of Boost in a local corporate repository so that all developers are using the same revision of the libraries?  Or do you just let/instruct users grab the latest official release from Boost.org?  (If repository is recommended then do you push up just the source, source + compiled, or just the staged files?)

2) How do you deal with bugs found in or enhancements to the various libraries between major release versions?  (I guess this depends greatly upon how you answer the previous question.)

3) Do you build Boost once for all toolsets and have developers copy the staged files to their local machines?  Or is each developer responsible for building the libraries themselves?  (I realize that a majority of the libraries are headers only but there is a fair number of libraries included that need to be compiled as well.)

4) How do Service Packs and Platform SDK updates affect the built libraries?  Should the libraries be rebuilt any time these change?

I'm sure there are a lot more questions - I just have to have somewhere to start on the path.  Obviously, there are companies out there that are using Boost
within their environment and so I'd love to gain insight from their
experiences and approaches.  Any other related information that could be provided would be most certainly welcomed as well.

Thank you in advance,

-Chris

PS - Forgive me if this is not the right group for this topic.  I'm not
quite sure which group this would fit within (this one or perhaps user?).  "Build" seemed to me to be the right place to start because I think my initial questions resolve around building, installation, and maintenance - but on second thought perhaps "Build" here refers to the build system itself and not building of Boost?  Anyway, if this is not the right group then if someone could please point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

PPS - Perhaps this information will prove to be sufficient in nature to warrant creating a guide/FAQ for the new user wishing to bring Boost into their corporate environs.  Or maybe there is one already and I just missed it completely?



 
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