[Boost-users] Installation issue

From: Micha Bieber (onsager_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-06 05:14:14

Hi, group

After some years staying away from boost, I installed the 1.32 release. 
The system was WinXP with VC6. I used the .exe variant. Take the 
following as remarks from an innocent, also if some of the issues seem 
to be trivial. Even though, I'm a C++ developer for more than 10 years 
now. I have used literally thousends of programs and libraries and I 
know, how quickly someone decides to skip the usage of software 
completely, simply because the installation becomes too strenous.
The story:

The exe is in fact an archive. This should be stated, because it 
suggests some form of installer.

Starting with bjam "-sTOOLS=msvc" stage first of all I got without 
bigger (*) problems a bulk of 
single/multi-threaded/whatever_other_configured libraries. So my next 
wish was to reduce the diversity. I deleted the stage directory and went 
on..
The doc states the usage of thread flags (-mt) but I was unable to set 
up a command line intuitively to build only multi-threaded release 
versions. One (!) example line should provide a recipe to solve this 
problem. I guess this is possible, after looking in Boost.Build.
The next point is, I need in fact only the BGL. So I tried:

v:\src\boost_1_32_0>bjam "-sTOOLS=msvc" --with-graph stage
---------------------------------------------------------------------
skipping Boost.Python library build due to missing or incorrect 
configuration

couldn't find Python.h in "c:/tools/python/include"

You can configure the location of your python installation by setting:
PYTHON_ROOT    - currently "c:/tools/python"
PYTHON_VERSION - The 2-part python Major.Minor version number (e.g.
                 "2.2", NOT "2.2.1")  - currently "2.2"

The following are automatically configured from PYTHON_ROOT if not
otherwise set:

    PYTHON_LIB_PATH       - path to Python library object; currently
                          "c:/tools/python/libs"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
don't know how to make stage
...found 1 target...
...can't find 1 target...

v:\src\boost_1_32_0>

I dont't know, if the python configuration/message is really necessary. 
Maybe an existing python installation can be found (I have an 
ActivePython here).
But the the last 3 lines are completely meaningless. What shall I do 
with it ? A command line error ? A problem with graph's dependencies ? 
Something else ?

msvc specific:
The library as a heavily template-loaded piece of software should IMO 
suppress warning 4786 at least in their own implementation files. This 
makes it easier to spot errors during the installation run.

Generally I lack information regarding dependencies for the single 
libraries. This should be part of the documentation (a must IMO, some 
accentuated doxygen graphs for the include hierarchy would be very 
helpful). Boost contains so many different things, and many people don't 
need all this stuff. It was absolutely no problem in the past, to 
install BGL (or its predecessor) by simply copying the header 
(neglecting for the moment the graphviz) interface.
IMO, this should be possible further on, maybe some additional helper 
like iterator. But it should be documented ! Many people prefer 
lightwight libraries and it seems also current versions of boost _can_ 
be configured this way (with som acceptable manual adjusting).
So a bit emphasis on these things yet in the doumentations "Getting 
started" section at a would be a nice thing (tm) and raise the libraries 
acceptance for new users.

(*)
...failed updating 24 targets...
...skipped 48 targets...
...updated 1051 targets...

Micha
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