Re: [Boost-build] Son of b2 - suggestions

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] Son of b2 - suggestions
From: Vladimir Prus (vladimir.prus_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-11-15 03:18:10

Hi Paul,

On 29-Oct-16 2:57 PM, Paul A. Bristow wrote:
> A few suggestions as you are getting closer to prototyping.

Thanks for this list! I think the points you made are pretty good, and 
many are good points for all domains; I have even printed out this email
for future reference.

There are a few points (some implicit) on which I don't quite agree, and 
I wanted to spell it out.

- As far as I'm concerned, we're not looking for a full-blown 
from-scratch rewrite. Getting where we are took some time and effort,
and redoing everything is unlikely to work. There, I do agree with
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

- Both you and Robert bring 'too clever' point. While I understand
this sentiment, being 'clever' is design goal of Boost.Build. There
is pretty of tools where you have to write long-winded explicit code
for everything, while the goal of Boost.Build is to make build 
description for individual modules as simple as possible, and move
complicated logic into build core or toolset definitions. That does
not mean that the "clever-vs-explicit" knob is at optimal position,
and we can move it. We can - and should - add more visibility into
what's going on.

In light of that, maybe the best way forward is to start from scratch
with documentation. We've incrementally tweaked documentation into
having too many disjoint introductions, and I fear we've outgrown
docbook as well. What I would like is to start over, writing an
'ideal' documentation for next version of Boost.Build, and fixing and
expanding and porting implementation to match this ideal documentation.

-- 
Vladimir Prus
https://vladimirprus.com