From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-08-08 10:27:11
From: "Beman Dawes" <bdawes_at_[hidden]>
> >> "Suppose I'm considering using a Boost library. What other libraries
> will
> >> also have to be installed because the lib I'm interested in is
> dependent
> >on
> >> them?
> >>
> >> That's the question we need to be able to answer, and it seems library
> >> rather than header oriented.
> >
> >The Boost "install" unit is the header, since there is no way to
> >download/install an individual library.
>
> IIRC, someone said that to Nico at the time he posed the question. I
can't
> remember the details of the conversation (at the Toronto C++ committee
> meeting a couple of years ago) but the point made was that it really isn't
> about download or install issues, but users wishing to use a portion of a
> library without being forced to use the whole library.
The fact of life is that currently Boost does not provide a way to obtain a
component. Users that wish to use a library have to obtain that library
first. Dependencies come second.
If there is no way to obtain a single library, then a per-library dependency
graph doesn't solve the problem.
There is also the issue with headers shared between several libraries.