On Sat, 20 Mar 2010 13:25:35 +0100, Paul A. Bristow <pbristow@hetp.u-net.com> wrote:
[...] - bjam is unfamiliar and inscrutable to many, and lacks *effective* documentation and jamfile comments. I see this as a mega barrier to many who might like to help.
- build/download/install process is not easy enough and not well enough documented - the same user problems keep cropping up again and again on the lists. (And very probably this is the tip of a much, much bigger iceberg).
I agree with you that the documentation is not sufficient. I had used Boost libraries for many years without ever understanding the difference between Boost.Jam and Boost.Build. I also never had an idea which option to use when and where (eg. is it msvc, --toolset=msvc, toolset=msvc or <toolset>msvc). After having sat down for a weekend last year and trying to understand the entire build process I wrote down what I learned. The article can be found at http://www.highscore.de/cpp/boostbuild/ and is not linked anywhere on the Boost website as far as I can tell. From the feedback I get this article should definitely help you to understand the big picture (some developers find the article via the usual search engines). The entire build process and the tools made very much sense to me when I finally got the big picture. That said I'm pretty much impressed - but it took me also years to become impressed. :) Boris PS: I only look forward to a Python port of the tools instead of using another scripting language in Jamfiles. I didn't make my mind yet whether switching to something else like CMake makes sense.