website2022/community/committee.html

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title: C++ Committee Meetings
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C++ Committee Meetings


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C++ Committee Meeting FAQ for Boost Members
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**Who can attend C++ Committee meetings?**
 Members of PL22.16 (the INCITS/ANSI committee) or of WG21 (ISO)
 member country committee ("national body" in ISO-speak).
 [INCITS](http://www.ncits.org/) has broadened PL22.16
 membership requirements so anyone can join, regardless of
 nationality or employer.


Meeting attendance requirements are tighter than in earlier 
 times, due to changes in INCITS and ISO rules. Anyone who is an 
 employee of a PL22.16 member organization can attend, as can 
 anyone who is a member of one of the national body groups such as 
 the [BSI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Standards).


Any non-member who would like to visit should check with the 
 PL22.16 chair or head of their national delegation. The Boosters 
 who are active on the committee can help smooth the way. Contact 
 the [Boost
 developer list](https://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost) for more information.


**When and where is the next meeting?** There
 are three meetings a year. Two are usually in North
 America, and one is usually outside North
 America. See a general [list of
 meeting locations and dates](http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/meetings). Detailed information about a
 particular meeting, including hotel information, is usually
 provided in a paper appearing in one of [mailings](#Mailing) for the prior meeting. If there isn't a
 link to it on the [Meetings](http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/meetings)
 web page, you will have to go to the committee's [Papers](http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/)
 page and search a bit.


**Is there a fee for attending meetings?** No,
 but there can be a lot of incidental expenses like travel,
 lodging, and meals.


**What is the schedule?** The meetings start at 
 9:00AM on Monday, and 8:30AM other days, unless otherwise 
 announced. It is best to arrive a half-hour early to grab a good 
 seat, some coffee, tea, or donuts, and to say hello to people.


Until the next
 standard ships most meetings are running through Saturday, 
 although some end on Friday. The last day, the meeting is generally over 
 much earlier than on other days. Because the last day's formal meeting is for formal votes
 only, it is primarily of interest only to actual committee
 members.


Sometimes there are evening technical sessions; the details
 aren't usually available until the Monday morning meeting.
 There may be a reception one evening, and, yes, significant
 others are invited. Again, details usually become available
 Monday morning.


**What actually happens at the meetings?**
 Monday morning an hour or two is spent in full committee on
 administrivia, and then the committee breaks up into working
 groups (Core, Library, and Enhancements). The full committee
 also gets together later in the week to hear working group
 progress reports.


The working groups are where most technical activities take
 place. Each active issue that appears on an issues list is
 discussed, as are papers from the mailing. Most issues are
 non-controversial and disposed of in a few minutes. Technical
 discussions are often led by long-term committee members, often
 referring to past decisions or longstanding working group
 practice. Sometimes a controversy erupts. It takes first-time
 attendees awhile to understand the discussions and how
 decisions are actually made. The working group chairperson
 moderates.


Sometimes straw polls are taken. In a straw poll anyone
 attending can vote, in contrast to the formal votes taken by
 the full committee, where only voting members can vote.


Lunch break is an hour and a half. Informal subgroups often
 lunch together; a lot of technical problems are discussed or
 actually solved at lunch, or later at dinner. In many ways
 these discussions involving only a few people are the most
 interesting. Sometimes during the regular meetings, a working
 group chair will break off a sub-group to tackle a difficult
 problem.


**Do I have to stay at the main hotel?** No,
 and committee members on tight budgets often stay at other,
 cheaper, hotels. (The main hotels are usually chosen because
 they have large meeting rooms available, and thus tend to be
 pricey.) The advantage of staying at the main hotel is that it
 is then easier to participate in the off-line discussions, which
 can be at least as interesting as what actually happens in the
 scheduled meetings.


**What do people wear at meetings?** Programmer
 casual. No neckties to be seen.


**What should I bring to a meeting?** It is almost 
 essential to have a laptop computer along. There is a meeting wiki and 
 there is internet connectivity. Wireless
 connectivity has become the norm.


**What should I do to prepare for a meeting?**
 It is helpful to have downloaded the mailing or individual
 papers for the meeting, and read any papers you are interested
 in. Familiarize yourself with the issues lists if you haven't
 done so already. Decide which of the working groups you want to
 attend.


**What is a "Paper"?** An electronic document containing
 issues, proposals, or anything else the committee is interested
 in. Very little gets discussed at a meeting, much less acted
 upon, unless it is presented in a paper. [Papers are
 available](http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/) to anyone. Papers don't just appear randomly;
 they become available four (lately six) times a year, before
 and after each meeting. Committee members often refer to a
 paper by saying what mailing it was in: "See the pre-Redmond
 mailing."


**What is a "Mailing"?** A mailing is the set of papers
 prepared four to six times a year before and after each
 meeting, or between meetings. It is physically just a [.zip or
 .gz](http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/mailings/) archive of all the papers for a meeting. Although the
 mailing's archive file itself is only available to committee
 members and technical experts, the contents (except copies of
 the standard) are available to the general public as individual
 papers. The ways of ISO are inscrutable.


**What is a "Reflector"?** The committee's
 mailing lists are called "reflectors". There are a number of
 them; "all", "core", "lib", and "ext" are the main ones. As a
 courtesy, Boost technical experts can be added to committee
 reflectors at the request of a committee member.



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© Copyright Beman Dawes, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010


Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. See
 [www.boost.org/LICENSE\_1\_0.txt](https://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)


Revised
 18 January 2010