Re: [Boost-build] Jam rename?

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] Jam rename?
From: Rene Rivera (grafikrobot_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-04-06 10:03:46

First, sorry it took so long to reply to this thread... Been busy :-\

Vladimir Prus wrote:
> Quite a number of folks tend to confuse Boost.Build and Boost.Jam,
> which is not only bad for "marketing" purposes, but also leads to people
> not understanding Boost.Build exists, has to be installed, has a version
> number, and all other kinds of confusion.
> 
> While previously Boost.Jam was close to Perforce Jam, it is presently
> a permanent and considerably diverged fork. In light of that, what would
> be the opinion about renaming 'bjam' binary into something. I don't want
> to propose any specific name right now, but I'm interested in the opinion
> as to such rename will do more harm than good, or not?

Generally I don't have a problem with renaming bjam. But I do worry that 
renaming it as a whole will not actually fix the branding problem. 
Although it might partially fix the BB vs. bjam confusion within Boost. 
I think that in order to make a rename effective it would also have to 
come with ditching of the Perforce/Jam vestiges. What I have in mind, at 
a minimum, would be to take Johan's suggestion of "bb" as the exe name. 
And removing the compiled in Perforce/Jambase making BBv2 the only option.

But even with that I worry about the implications this has for doing 
releases. Since bjam and BBv2 releases are totally independent. Hence 
the confusion might still be there. And the only way I can see to remove 
that confusion is to bundle both bjam and BBv2 in the same release 
*always*. Which is not a convenient arrangement since it could make 
doing releases a bit more work.

Rene.