Re: [Boost-users] Boost-users Digest, Vol 807, Issue 1

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Message: 9 Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:30:25 +0000 From: Jim Douglas Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Getting started with Boost: what did you need to know? To: boost-users@lists.boost.org Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Drumheller, Michael wrote:

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Main stumbling point for me was bjam. It's not so much of a problem for

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Perhaps people don't complain because most only use bjam it to build the libraries (archives and shared objects) and then (like me) they use 'make' to build the projects that incorporate Boost. I would guess that you are in the minority if you write in-house extensions to the Boost library.

Sorry about that, I was being very unclear. I did not mean in-house extensions to the Boost library, I meant C++ extensions to Python, using Boost.Python. The Boost.Python tutorial contains an extremely ominous warning, in a big yellow box, here: <<http://www.boost.org/libs/python/doc/tutorial/doc/html/python/hello.ht ml>>, It says, in so many words, that you're a masochist if you try to build your Boost.Python extensions with anything but bjam.

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Having said that, I can appreciate that bjam is a *very* powerful tool and has many advantages over make, but I just can't find the time to study the docs enough to make a trial switch.

Jim

Don't get me wrong, I can't stand the error-prone, undebuggable dinosaur that is make, and I would never advocate it for a new project. I too can appreciate that bjam seems very powerful. And elegant, in its own way. It also seems very fast. But with a monster learning curve. That's not necessarily a downer--you don't get something for nothing, and I actually *like* learning new tools, so I was happy to see the "Abandon hope, all ye who <would use a tool other than bjam>" warning on the gates of Boost.Python (yellow box above), because I thought, well, there's my motivation to learn bjam--maybe bjam will be my new default build tool(!) I read all the documents I could find, but man, it's like learning Turkish or Vietnamese or something. You need a teacher, and there are just zero teachers in my org. Alas, the bjam files in Boost themselves (those that are used to build the Boost libraries) are (or at least seem) *extremely* sohpisticated, and are woefully uncommented--in fact, absolutely *un*commented if you define a comment as something with tutorial value, e.g., "Here is an excellent example of a rule to do such-and-such." Personally, I was unable to get past the knee of the curve given my other commitments. Again, maybe it's just me. I'm curious: How many Boost users out there use bjam as the default build tool for their day-to-day programming? I recall hearing at one time that there was a movement afoot, at one time at least, to switch the Boost build process over to using scons. Any truth to that? Thanks, MD