On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Robert Ramey <ramey@rrsd.com> wrote:
Emil Dotchevski wrote:
On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 11:13 AM, Stefan Seefeld <seefeld@sympatico.ca> wrote:
Emil Dotchevski wrote: This seems to me a rather academic question, in contrast to the original request. Boost is still shipped as a single package on most (if not all) platforms, and providing some help to packagers to be able to split it up would be extremely useful.
How would it be extremely useful?
Permit me to answer that.
a) First of all - it is ALOT less time to build and test only the libraries that one actually uses rather than the whole set.
Less time than downloading the (entire) pre-built Boost distribution, that's already been tested?
b) In practice, its common to find a couple of anomolies in one or the other libraries and this takes a disproportionate amount of tiem to track down and get things built.
Your best bet to avoid anomalies is to not migrate to another version of Boost. Your second-best bet is to not mix and match headers from different Boost releases: you want to download and use a single Boost distribution.
c) As boost grows - this problem gets bigger - even for someone using only a couple of libraries. That is, the current system doesn't scale.
I consider myself a prime example of someone using only a few Boost libraries. Still, the easiest and most reliable strategy for me is to download the entire Boost. The only better alternative would be if someone tests and distributes a Boost release that includes just the stuff I personally need and nothing else. But you can't convince me that I'm better off doing this packaging myself -- even if it's automated -- compared to just downloading an entire Boost release. Emil Dotchevski Reverge Studios, Inc. http://www.revergestudios.com/reblog/index.php?n=ReCode