On 15.08.2015 14:28, Tom Kent wrote:

On Fri, Aug 14, 2015 at 8:34 PM, Glen Fernandes mailto:glen.fernandes@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Aug 14, 2015 at 9:03 PM, Tom Kent wrote: > Is this something the community would be in favor of? I know that many of > the people on these lists don't use windows and if they do are generally > capable of building the windows binaries themselves, however there is a > large group out there that prefers to just get the installer for them (like > they do for other projects like Qt, wxWidgets, etc). > > Thoughts?

While I have not been a MSVC user for a while now: I think it's a good thing for our VC users that binaries are available to them.

Is (1) necessary? I was under the impression binaries becoming available a few days after a source release is not uncommon.

This is basically how it is now....if people don't think it is necessary we can stick with this. However, I think it would be more professional if we change, hence my e-mail to the list.

As an occasional user of Boost libraries on windows (and not as proficient in visual environments) I'm always grateful to be able to fetch the pre-built bundle and unzip/install it, without needing to go through the hassle with unfamiliar environment. So from my perspective a big thumbs up (or Like, as it is called nowadays) for supporting my laziness and making them more the integral part of the release.

SourceForge raises the usual concern: Can you trust a Windows executable or DLL that you get from sourceforge.net http://sourceforge.net anymore?

The .7z file and installers are SHA-256 hashed, and the list of hashes is signed with my GPG key. That said, I think we need to start planning an alternative to sourceforge for releases. It is not clear to me that it will still be around in a few years. That's a whole different thread though.

Also, how do you cater to users who want variants that you're not providing? i.e. Already you probably have Debug/Release * 32-bit/64-bit * MT/MD/MTd/MDd * LIB/DLL (per 6 compiler versions). What happens if someone wants /Gz or /Gv instead of /Gd etc.

I provide whatever bjam specifies with --build-type=complete. The bigger question is external libraries. I link with zlib, and bzip2 but not MPI for instance. I have had users ask for different version numbers of those libraries, but my answer is then that you're on your own for building anything else. These kind of questions are only relevant to far less than 1% of the people who download the binaries.

If I had a need to dig deep enough to require special builds, building Boost from sources with my specific compile/link options would not be a big deal. Standard set of variants as available today is perfectly adequate for quick and simple deployment. Cheers, Leon