Re: [Boost-users] Too many library variants

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-11-15 01:03:06

On Mon, 14 Nov 2005 20:17:00 -0500, David Abrahams wrote
> Rene Rivera <grafik.list_at_[hidden]> writes:
> 
> > Merrill Cornish wrote:
> >> When I built Boost 1.33.0 for MinGW, I just specified the toolset.
> >> As a result I got 28! variants on the set of Boost libraries.
> >> 
> >>> From the various file names, I can figure out most of the variants:
> >>> 
> >> d = debug mt = multi-threaded s = static but there are other variants
> >> which aren't as obvious.
> >
> > It's all explained in 
> > <http://www.boost.org/more/getting_started.html#Results>.
> 
> Rene, I get the impression that 28 variants is a lot more than most
> people want, at least at first.  Maybe we shouldn't build all of them
> by default, and just supply enough to "get started?"

I think at one point Doug suggested that a single variant is the most common
case, and I agree.  Or at least rewrite the getting started so the one
selected variant case is trivial to understand.  Just looking at this
getting_started page...it really needs a more tutorial like...filled with
examples style.  For example, the type of question I'm asking as a developer
when reading getting started is: "how do I get the thing to build
multithreaded dlls with vc7.1 installed in c:\dev\boost_libs".  There's
nothing even close to that on the getting started page.  Oh well, sorry to
digress -- and no I'm not volunteering ;-)

Jeff