I've heard about Boost during my years in college. I started trying out different libraries to see what they do, and how they work. Boost quickly became my go-to source of research of advanced C++. Although, at that point it has also been my main source of knowledge of essential C++ idioms. Some time later I found out about build systems (as before that I was either using IDEs or compilers directly). I guess, due to the simplicity of acquiring them, the first build systems I encountered were CMake and Boost.Build. Although technically "Modern CMake" was already around, it was only getting traction. Thus, the immense difference in expressiveness between old CMake and Boost.Build made the latter the obviously superior choice. I still maintain that b2 (as it is called now) is fundamentally better than even Modern CMake, which, as I later found out, was explicitly started to replicate some of the features of Boost.Build. My first contribution to Boost was actually several improvements to b2. And a few more years later Vinnie Falco was looking for someone to replace him as the maintainer of Boost.JSON. I decided to apply, and have been employed by the C++ Alliance since then. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, as maintaining an open source library is actually a pretty fun job which doesn't come by often. I still do some Boost stuff not "on the clock", for example I recently managed a library review. So, to summarise, Boost was very useful for me in college, and then at work (it was a company policy to prefer Boost to custom solutions). I am still using Boost for my personal stuff, and I don't see myself switching to standard library components, just for the sake of them being in the standard. And while the size of my involvement in Boost is the result of me being employed to maintain a Boost library, even if we cut ties with the Alliance, I still see myself participating in the community and making code contributions. ср, 10 июл. 2024 г. в 17:48, David Sankel via Boost <boost@lists.boost.org>:
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?