Re: [Boost-build] Improving Boost Build?

From: Dean Michael Berris (mikhailberis_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-15 17:06:40

Hi John!

On 5/15/07, John Maddock <john_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> Irrespective of what happens with the CMake vs BBv2 debate, it's apparent
> that there is still plenty of support for bbv2: indeed, I would echo
> comments that it's a pleasure to use, provided you don't need to dig in and
> write new rules yourself :-)
>

I hope we can do something about that last part of this statement... :)

>
> 2) Better docs.  Yes, I know it's been said before, but we really must get
> the existing toolsets and their options documented.  This need not take too
> long if someone would step up and volunteer to do it.
>

I'd like to help out with this aspect definitely.

The question is, how do we do this in a concerted effort such that we
can get things moving quickly with the least resistance?

A Wiki would be ideal. Using quickbook for something like this at the
moment only heightens the barrier to entry because not everyone can go
ahead and start writing stuff directly with it yet. My only problem
with a Wiki is that it's hard to export data from there (depending on
which Wiki we'd choose to use). Previous experience with MoinMoin
yielded very good results, but I don't think there's a good enough
"export" feature there just yet.

Another alternative would be using Google Docs, where maybe someone (A
doc maintainer?) Would have control of the document, and invite people
who would like to collaborate on the development of the documentation.
There's also a "viewers" feature which we can use for proof reading or
what not, or to let people just see the document and not necessarily
give them access to changing the document. The up side for Google docs
is the ease of exporting to different formats.

Any leaders? I feel I don't have enough experience (yet) to actually
document most of the issues with BBv2, even if I've been using it for
a year or so already. And the day job isn't really a walk in the park
as well, so I'm afraid even if I want to volunteer to head this
effort, that I wouldn't have enough time to put into it (not not
nearly as much as I would like to).

>
> 4) Relating to the above, I wonder if we could have a "generic" toolset that
> used the environment variables CXX, CXXFLAGS, LDFLAGS in much the same way
> that the autotools do.  If necessary the top-level configure script could
> make use of this to behave in a more autotools-like manner.
>

I think there are some ways already in BBv2 of doing this, but I don't
think there's a standard solution given the breadth of compiler
choices available. But I do agree that being more "legacy friendly" in
this regard would be a good thing.

> 5) More BBv2 developers :-)  I actually think we do tools rather well - both
> quickbook and BBv2 are so very nearly where they need to be, but just need
> that final push that only more developers (and a wider audience) can bring.
> Part of the problem here is that Boost attracts folks interested in C++
> libraries, and who don't necessarily want to spend their time hacking
> Jamfiles or whatever.  I'm not sure how solve this, unless maybe these tools
> can acquire a life of their own outside of Boost as well as within it.
>

I'd like to help here too, but I guess I still have quite a ways to go
to actually start getting into the internals of BBv2.

> Anyway these are just a few random thoughts, hopefully presented in the
> spirit of trying to find a positive way forward.  I'll look forward to
> seeing what people think,
>

Thanks for the great list John, I look forward to helping out in this
effort definitely.

Have a great day!

-- 
Dean Michael C. Berris
http://cplusplus-soup.blogspot.com/
mikhailberis AT gmail DOT com
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