I'm pretty new to Boost, and I'm mostly a lurker on the mailing list. I originally heard of Boost when I was looking for a JSON library for a personal project a few years ago, and Boost.Json seemed like it made the most intuitive sense as a user. Later, since working with C++ professionally, I've been using Boost lightly at my day job over the past few years. Things like `boost::intrusive::list` or `boost::container::deque`, containers that allow me to do my work better. After working for a bit, I realized I didn't like the idea of all my hard work being owned by another entity, not freely available. Especially not available to myself once I'm no longer at the company, even though I worked hard writing the code. I thought it would feel good to contribute to the community on top of my regular day job. I saw a Reddit thread where someone was complaining about Boost documentation, and I had thought the same thing before too. Boost documentation can be hard to work with, much harder than cppreference which I find very easy to use. I wanted to help make Boost docs better. I had used Boost.Json, and I knew the name "Vinnie Falco" from him being Boost.Json's author and from his comments on that same Reddit thread. So I cold-emailed Vinnie asking for direction on how I could get started contributing. Fast-forward to now. I was since hired to work part-time with the C++ Alliance, where I've been mostly helping with Boost.Unordered optimizations and user experience. I've been given the chance to attend a few conferences, and even had the amazing opportunity to speak in a full slot at C++Now 2024 just a few months ago. I came to Boost because I wanted to contribute to the community, and I have stayed here because of the mentorship I've received by those in the Boost community and in the C++ Alliance. I particularly want to mention Joaquin, who has helped me grow as a developer. I appreciate how meticulous he is in his analysis of my code changes, without any sense of condescension or derision. So far I like Boost. I see myself sticking around. And maybe contributing to the mailing list more often... but no promises. On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 at 09:48, David Sankel via Boost <boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
For those who got involved in Boost within the last couple years, how did you hear about boost? What attracted you to it?
For those who have been around for a while, what keeps you here? Why do you stay engaged?
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