> Ok I'll bite... > > Preamble(!): > * I know next to nothing about the soruce tree (lurker) > * I know next to nothing about what specific usage of Jam is done > here in the OBOS build system. > > Now with the meat: > talking in the abstract, for the reasons above, I'd take > this build system thinggie as I take code: do it "top down"! > > I.e. (no offense intended) if you have a Jamfile in a subdir > that depends on a file build with another jamfile above itself, > then it's like spaghetti code. Or spaghetti building. Others might call it well-organized. :-P I, for instance, think it is a good idea to have libraries and applications built in different subtrees. Nevertheless the applications depend on libraries. To obey the paradigma you proposed, we either needed to put the library sources into the directories of the applications -- that won't work as several apps may use the same library -- or at least build both libraries and applications with one big Jamfile, what is very ugly. Now you will hopefully agree (I'm sure, I was convincing ;-) that there is a need for cross dependencies in the source tree. Well, and that is the cause of the original question: If you build from a subdirectory it may occur, that there are dependencies to files built in another branch of the tree. > So, is my mail totally irrelevant or not ? Out of the blue that's > the "analysis" I'd gather from the initial post in this thread. Mmh... ;-) CU, Ingo