Re: [Boost-build] Improving Boost Build?

From: Dean Michael Berris (mikhailberis_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-17 14:44:04

Hi Dave!

On 5/17/07, David Abrahams <dave_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> on Thu May 17 2007, "Dean Michael Berris" <mikhailberis-AT-gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > When I said "let's", I meant people either already involved in the
> > effort of documenting it and people who actually want to get involved.
> > I obviously am one of the "let's" I refer to, and I was hoping you
> > were part of it as well.
> >
> > Now that the intention is clear that you don't want any part of the
> > "let's fix it [documentation]" effort, I guess that leaves just
> > Vladimir Prus and I -- and maybe other people who haven't sounded off
> > yet [so PLEASE LET US KNOW NOW WHO YOU ARE].
>
> Let me be clear about this: it's not exactly that I don't want any
> part of it, but that I can't afford to take part, especially if there
> is a viable alternative for Boost.  I have too many other
> responsibilities.  It was at one time my intention to work on the
> **user-level** documentation, to increase usability for end-users
> because having a workable build system for Boost is crucial to its
> future.  In the end, all I could really do was our new getting started
> guide, and even that was a major effort.
>

Okay, now I understand. :)

> Note that all the work we could do to make things easier for users
> would do very little (not nothing, but little) to make it easier for
> new programmers to work on the system.  The documentation of the
> system's architecture and its implementation is a whole other bag of
> worms.
>

I was referring to both documentation of how to use the system as well
as the documentation of the internals, the design, the architecture,
how to extend it, how not to extend it, etc. So yes, I see that there
are problems on both fronts and something has got to be done on both
fronts. I just wish people who actually want to contribute sound
off...

> >
> > It might be taking on burden people haven't wanted to take on for
> > the longest time, but somebody's gotta do it. And since I'm bent on
> > converting myself from a "user" to a "contributor" -- and since I
> > can spare the years still being in my early twenties -- I'd like to
> > try and do it.
>
> More power to you.
>

Thanks. I need all the power I can get. ;-)

> >
> > When you say instantaneously, do you mean you don't want to see the
> > "... patience ..." thing
>
> Yes, or even the long wait before "... patience ..."  In BBv2
> "patience" shows up only during dependency analysis.  Most of the time
> before that goes into interpreting the code in your Jamfiles, etc.
>

Ah. Something worth looking at indeed.

> > or be "fool proof with fancy AI" that you don't need to tell the
> > build system how your project is organized and which binaries are to
> > be built, linked, or whatnot?
>
> Not that.
>

I thought so too. :D

> > The "bjam being slow and resource hungry" problem might be addressable
> > somehow -- how I don't know yet, but I'm guessing it might require
> > doing major surgery on the jam codebase (which is in C). It might also
> > involve having to use Boost.Graph for the dependency tracking,
> > Boost.Spirit for parsing the Jamfiles, Boost.Filesystem to work on the
> > files, and maybe Boost.Python to expose these lower level
> > services/components to a Python engine which drives the build process
> > (using the external tools like compilers, linkers, assemblers,
> > whatnot). I don't know if the above makes sense or whether it's
> > feasible but leaving the jam legacy code might be a step in the right
> > direction.
>
> Wow.  Big project.
>

If that's what needs to be done, then I guess someone's gotta do it
too... We'll see, if there's enough encouragement and support from the
(or a) community to keep this alive [CAN PEOPLE PLEASE CHIME IN NOW?!]
then maybe it just might be worth the effort.

> >
> > So if Boost does decide to use CMake as *the* build system of choice,
> > I still don't see why Boost.Build would have to disappear into the
> > sunset when people actually use it.
>
> Absolutely; as long as it has a user base, it has life.
>

Agreed. :-)

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