Ravi wrote:
On Monday 03 November 2008 13:11:26 Chris wrote:
I use many libraries, I learned bjam because I use boost in Windows and linux. I use ACE, fltk, and compile many. Overall, I do not fully trust any convention of INSTALL.txt and README.txt. Sometimes they have compilation instructions in README (fltk). Or in ACE-INSTALL.html. Or on the website. Or a text file refers to another source. Or under program option help (cmake openalsoft).
If I have a configure, then I don't even read anything. ./configure --help to see options. ./configure, make, sudo make install If not, then I look at any binaries or special files in the directory that tell me what type of build system it uses, or at any text files. I look for "To install, do this: ...". I usually first ignore html files, since I can't vi them. (Sometimes I'm on the console or network.)
I do not understand your point. As a mostly *nix user, here's my take:
I gave my personal process for building anything in general, if boost development wanted to know. The boost configure can be removed for me. If so, my preference is to have a plain text INSTALL.txt file because it's universal (if I don't have a browser).
1. Most users will use whatever their distribution provides (Linux, OpenSolaris, etc.) and the distribution packagers will figure out that bjam/cmake is what is required.
The latest boost for ubuntu intrepid is 1.35. Most of time time I don't bother because they are not the latest. ACE: 5.6.3 (latest is 5.6.6), fltk 1.1 (I use fltk 2).
2. For those that compile from source, the binaries will be installed in some special place, and probably have some complex flags; these users are poorly served by the presence of a configure script that does not exactly match their expectations.
Right, for example I disable python manually because the configure script can't automatically do it. (not fully installed)