Hi David, On 16.06.2017 19:44, David Sankel via Boost wrote:
Howdy all,
This is a request for comments on a possible path for migrating Boost's build system to CMake. I am not speaking for the Boost Program Committee here, but I plan on bringing this up with them after getting feedback.
While I agree that there is a need to improve the current infrastructure, I disagree on your proposal, not because I have any well-formed opinion on CMake (I haven't), but because I think the problem is more fundamental, and can't be solved by another switch of tools. The problem isn't a technical one, it's systemic / organisational. Boost has grown a lot, and neither its organization nor its infrastructure (of which the build system is just one part) doesn't scale well. So instead of substituting a tool, I would like to invite you to consider a few organizational changes. Notably, I would like to see the long-stalled modularization process to be picked up again and be continued (and completed ?). Instead of managing all of Boost in terms of a single github super-repository, a single build system, a single issue tracker, a single website (etc., etc.), I'd like to see all of this to be broken out into separate projects, where most of the tool choices could be handled locally, i.e. per project. The role of Boost as the organization would be that of a umbrella organization that defines certain guidelines, provides services (financial, legal, etc.), but otherwise tries hard to stay out of the way to accelerate rather than hinder development. Looking at the current set of libraries, I can see a number that already are relatively independent, so the remaining change to complete the "modularization" is minor. (Take as an example Boost.Python, which few other Boost libraries depend on, and if so, only optionally so.) The rest could be incrementally separated, eventually leaving a single "Boost core" project, which everything else depends on. Once there, you could rephrase your proposal for each individual library project to consider to switch. There wouldn't be a huge discussion flooding everyone's inbox, and consuming lots of time and energy from way too many people. Smaller groups of people would much quicker come to a conclusion, and the implementation of the change would be swift. At least that's one dream I keep having... Stefan -- ...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...