Re: [Boost-build] Future development

From: Rene Rivera (grafikrobot_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-10-04 01:11:34

Before I go sleep from a long day...

Douglas Gregor wrote:
> On Oct 3, 2007, at 8:15 AM, Vladimir Prus wrote:

>> I don't quite agree with this logic. Say there's project A and  
>> project B,
>> in same domain. Project A has objectively more users, and was  
>> around for
>> longer. Does it mean project B should always be implemented within  
>> project
>> B? I don't think so.
> 
> This is a Straw Man argument, and it doesn't help. The fact is that  
> by building on CMake, we get all of the features of CMake now, plus  
> everything that the CMake community adds in the future (including  
> maintenance), all for free. If we build everything ourselves, we  
> maintain everything ourselves.

Sorry to saw but that is also an erroneous argument. You just don't get 
anything for free. As I've mentioned before I have yet to hear an 
argument that makes meta-make systems, like Cmake, worth the effort. 
First what we get from the Cmake community is that we don't develop 
*part* of the build system ourselves. What we also get is that we have 
to test our extra changes to it. And we have to test that bugs in the 
make system are ours or theirs (just like all that time we spend in 
figuring out if a C++ problem is a Boost bug or a vendor bug). And we 
have to test all the make systems that Cmake produces. And we have to 
test Boost in all the make systems Cmake produces (for example testing 
MSVC with both nmake files and VS project files). We also gain the 
pleasure of fielding user bug reports and figuring out which make system 
might be at fault. And what Boost will loose is Volodya, Noel, others, 
and myself maintaining the building of Boost, not just the build system. 
Perhaps you can make that one up with other people stepping in, as Troy 
has, but you can't know for sure.

Regardless, making the Cmake vs BB argument to myself, and likely 
Volodya, and others in the context of the continued development of BB is 
essentially pointless. We, or at least myself, will continue to develop 
BB and bjam, regardless of what Boost decides to use as a build system.

I know I'm sounding like a killjoy ;-)

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