I use scons for my projects, which include usage of boost. I have not used scons to build boost itself...
Same here. I tried bjam and found it very hard to understand. Scons was appealing as I knew enough python to get it to do whatever I needed. I only use on one platform (linux), whereas Boost has a need for multiple compiler support, so I have no idea how it is for that. My biggest complaint with scons is that it decides the compile order: I wanted unit tests to be compiled and run in the order I defined them (i.e. from quick and simple to slow and complex). But if 20 exes need recompiling due to a header file change, it grabs all 20 names, and then compiles them in arbitrary order (probably alphabetical order). So to work around that I have python loops adding artificial dependencies, so that each unit test exe depends on the previous unit test exe. The downside of that is I have bypassed all scons cleverness: if I change a file only the first and last unit test depend on, it still has to compile and re-run all unit tests in between. So, for my needs, I give make and bjam 3/10, and scons 5/10. Darren