A fresh draft of the proposal is up at http://beman.github.com/dot16/any-proposal.html In testing new any_cast examples, Boost.Any is handling one case differently from the proposal: any x; ... x = "Meow"; // x holds const char* This works fine with the Adobe implementation, but with the Boost implementation g++ 4.7.0 -std=c++11 reports: In file included from any_cast_test.cpp:5:0: c:\boost\trunk/boost/any.hpp: In instantiation of 'boost::any::holder<ValueType>::holder(c onst ValueType&) [with ValueType = char [5]]': c:\boost\trunk/boost/any.hpp:52:49: required from 'boost::any::any(const ValueType&) [wi th ValueType = char [5]]' c:\boost\trunk/boost/any.hpp:124:13: required from 'boost::any& boost::any::operator=(Va lueType&&) [with ValueType = const char (&)[5]; boost::any = boost::any]' any_cast_test.cpp:79:7: required from here c:\boost\trunk/boost/any.hpp:169:27: error: array used as initializer VC++ 2012 gets the same error, albeit with a much longer set of messages. AFAICS, the Adobe (and the proposed standard) behavior is preferred. The type does need to decay. Comments? --Beman