Re: [Boost-build] The future of B2?

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] The future of B2?
From: Rene Rivera (grafikrobot_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-10-03 19:16:50

On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 4:59 PM, Loïc Joly <l.joly_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> The point is that in addition to the points you mentioned that I would
> call catching up with the other systems, I still need to see what sets b2
> apart, what really justifies using it instead of the alternatives. I think
> it would be interesting to describe those abstractions and how they help
> you on real world environments, with concrete example.
>

Strangely that's both a hard and easy question to answer... Some key
"aspects" or "features" that set it apart:

* It attempts to minimize the amount of compiler/toolset knowledge a
programmer needs to know to get most things done portably.

* It attempts to minimize the amount of work a programmer does to build
variations of the same code.

* It attempts to "bake" the knowledge of tools and systems from experts so
that non-experts can use those tools and systems.

* And it attempts to do all that by modeling what a programmer is building
instead of how to do that building.

But at the end, all I can say is that it's a personal choice for me.. I've
tried many build systems. I've had to poke around and debug many build
systems. And nothing yet lets me get back to programming faster than Boost
Build. Even when that meant having to write a new b2 toolset for emscripten
when my one line compile script wasn't enough. It was faster to write that
new toolset in less than one hour including the 10 minutes to write the
build files for my small, but now rapidly growing, project.. Than to even
consider something else.

-- 
-- Rene Rivera
-- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
-- Robot Dreams - http://robot-dreams.net
-- rrivera/acm.org (msn) - grafikrobot/aim,yahoo,skype,efnet,gmail