Advice for Boost CMake scripts

[Michael Dickens]

Thanks for the info, Ryan. That's really interesting that the Boost powers-that-be don't think such a critical error in boost::beast to not require a quick rev-bump. They could fix their broken CMake find scripts at the same time! Grrr ....

I'm really of mixed mind about patching Boost beyond anything to make it work on OSX && in MacPorts ... right now, just the 2 patches required for Beast and the CMake find scripts, which are both already upstream. Projects need Boost to be as same-same across OS installs as possible.

I'm currently at: If Boost builds with a built-in bug, projects need to find a way to work around that bug for any specific Boost version(s) impacted. I don't necessarily believe this for other projects, but Boost is special & impacts so many projects, that keeping it as honest as possible across OSs / installs seems like the right way to go.

Hence, at least for the Boost CMake scripts, my inclination is to add a non-default variant that installs them, and add NOTE to that variant when enabled that the scripts are broken & that this variant is really just for fixing dependent projects to work with the broken scripts. This Portfile addition is very straight forward && how I have my internal-for-testing Boost setup: 2 different installs that can be hot-swapped via "port activate" ... 1 with the scripts & the other without them. A lot redundant but it's easy & works well.

Further thoughts? - MLD

On Fri, May 24, 2019, at 2:57 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> 
> 
> On May 19, 2019, at 10:13, Michael Dickens wrote:
> 
> > I'm looking for advice on how to move forward with Boost 1.70.0's CMake find scripts: do we just not install them? Or do we patch them via what upstream has already done? Or do we just wait for 1.70.1 -- which will contain those fixes -- to be released & skip 1.70.0 entirely (and, ban it from ports in which we easily can do so)?
> 
> It looks like they will not do a 1.70.1 release. They will release 
> 1.71.0 on schedule presumably in mid-August 2019.
> 
> https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2019/05/246145.php
> 
>