On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 at 16:48, David Sankel via Boost wrote:

For those who got involved in Boost within the last couple years, how did you hear about boost? What attracted you to it?

I've been using boost as an essential force multiplier of C++ since version 1.35 when Asio appeared, courtesy of Chris Kohlhoff. More recently in 2017, I needed an asynchronous websocket library for C++ and lo-and-behold, boost had one, courtesy of Vinnie Falco.

For those who have been around for a while, what keeps you here? Why do you stay engaged?

After finishing a contract in which I used Boost.Beast et.al. in production code, I took up an offer by the C++ Alliance to become a maintainer of it. A bit of a "Victor Kiam" moment, if you will. While working for the C++ Alliance I was also involved in the design and first cut of Boost.Json and had some input into Boost.Url, another two very keenly needed libraries sponsored by the C++ Alliance. I am no longer working for the C++ Alliance, but maintain a warm relationship with the organisation. I am currently using Boost.Cobalt in a financial trading software suite. I stay engaged because: - I don't want to have to switch languages - C++ is perfectly fine for me. - Boost polyfills all the essential functionality that the children running WG21 continue to refuse to provide. - It's convenient to have one library that provides (almost) every tool I need. My very great thanks to the original authors and contributors, and more recently to the C++ Alliance, which as far as I can see is the only major sponsor of Boost. Without this organisation's involvement, I believe the libraries would have been allowed to fall into disrepair a long time ago. I don't think I have met more than one team in the financial industry which uses C++ but which does not use Boost. On a separate note, I was deeply disappointed by your recent public outbursts, David. Sincerely, Richard Hodges A C++phile ex maintainer of Boost.Beast contributor to Boost.Json, Boost.Url Advisor to Boost.MySQL, Boost.Cobalt

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For those who got involved in Boost within the last couple years, how did you hear about boost?

I heard about it from a university professor as a freshman undergraduate student in 2011. Since C++11 was just coming about, and the speed of updating toolchains in academia is slow so we were stuck in the C++03 days on old RHEL systems.

What attracted you to it?

I was studying aeronautical engineering so having pre-made libraries like Boost.Math, Boost.Multiprecision, and ODEint were useful to me. I could focus on the problem at hand rather than having to roll my own special functions, solvers, big numbers, constants, etc.

For those who have been around for a while, what keeps you here? Why do you stay engaged?

I started to get involved with development during the COVID lockdowns because like many people I found myself with quite a bit of extra free time. What hooked me was learning from and working with extremely competent programmers and mathematicians like John Maddock, Chris Kormanyos, and Nick Thompson. I was hired by the C++ Alliance at the beginning of 2023 and they have sponsored my development since. This allows me to work on new (https://github.com/cppalliance/decimal), and existing libraries (charconv, math, multiprecision, random, etc) in a way that I was never able to on a volunteer basis with a full time job. The community is large, knowledgeable, and helpful so I continue to enjoy working on Boost. I think it would be beneficial to the developer community for the Boost Foundation board members to also answer these questions. Frankly some even require introductions with their answers. There are members of the board like Peter, Glen, and Zach that are Titans of Boost, and those like Kristen who I had not heard of until her post about wanting to cut ties with the C++ Alliance. Having unknown members of the Boost Foundation runs counter to their mission statement whereby the board intends to achieve its mission by "fostering community engagement, [and] nurturing leaders..."[1]. Matt [1] https://sites.google.com/boost.org/boost-foundation/home

This is a lovely thread, and I am hopeful that it will remain on-topic. On Wed, Jul 10, 2024 at 7:48 AM 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?

Interestingly, in 2001 when I wrote BearShare I tried out Boost.Asio as the underlying network stack. My C++ was average back then, and I was using Visual Studio 6. I got so flustered and turned off by the templates, the concepts, compile errors going for days, that I just gave up. This sadly left a bad taste in my mouth for Boost which carried on for several years. When I came to Ripple, it was already using Boost.Asio through "websocketpp." This websocket library was so frustrating for us that I explored writing a new websocket library using Boost.Asio. My C++ had gotten better and later I had access to more knowledgeable folks like Howard Hinnant and Peter Dimov who I learned quite a lot from. I got the idea to propose the library, renamed to Boost.Beast, which was subsequently accepted. I suppose the motivators for Boost for me are: 1. Boost can connect to the internet (unlike std). 2. Boost helps me target earlier versions of C++, expanding my potential audience. 3. The convenience and synergy from a release that is tested together and works together. For those who have been around for a while, what keeps you here? Why do you

stay engaged?

I love the experience of having users. Lasting happiness is only achieved in service to others; knowing that people out there benefit from my work, whether commercially or otherwise, brings me joy. Most C++ developers immediately recognize a great library when they use it, even if they themselves do not quite rise to the level of skill required to author one. A library is the equivalent of a work of art; I am happy to labor through all aspects of development such as perfecting an API, writing documentation, authoring tests, applying optimizations, creating benchmarks, promoting the library to encourage its use, and supporting its growing user community after it is published, as these skills are essential for being well-rounded and the producing the greatest good. Permissively licensed software is cheap. You write it once, at a fixed price (time). The potential gain is infinite, as the acquisition of each new user costs nothing. I stay engaged because of the emotional payoff at the end of a development cycle when users get their hands on my newly published stuff. Thanks

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?

Great questions. I have an academic background in optimization and computational intelligence. During my studies, I quickly realized the immense potential of C++ for my work. I fell in love with the language for its combination of performance and the ability to abstract complex concepts. As I delved into C++, I soon discovered Boost. The quality of these libraries was outstanding, and I began incorporating various Boost libraries into my academic projects. Here are some I’ve used over time, in no particular order: Boost.Pool, Boost.StringAlgorithms, Boost.Spirit, Boost.DLL, Boost.MultiIndex, Boost.Container, Boost.Tribool, Boost.Graph, Boost.Asio, Boost.Beast, Boost.Coroutine, Boost.Integer, Boost.Multiprecision, Boost.ProgramOptions, Boost.Serialization, Boost.Uuid, Boost.Describe, Boost.Hana, Boost.Histogram, Boost.Interprocess, Boost.JSON, Boost.Nowide, Boost.Geometry, Boost.Process, Boost.Range, and Boost.Math. I remember https://theboostcpplibraries.com/, which was invaluable to me during this period. I used to recommend it to everyone. A few years later, I became a professor, teaching C++, among other subjects. Initially, we couldn’t use C++11 in our classes, so Boost was integral to our research projects. The synergy between Boost and the evolving C++11 standard was apparent. As C++11 gained traction, some recommended alternatives to Boost. But I remained loyal to Boost due to its superior quality. However, after nearly a decade in academia, I grew increasingly dissatisfied. Despite my achievements with C++ and Boost, the pressure to publish frequently led to an overemphasis on Python prototypes that always went nowhere but got papers published. To counter this, I began contributing to open-source C++ libraries in my spare time, focusing initially on scientific computing and optimization. Some of my libraries gained traction, which fueled my enthusiasm. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I had more time to contribute to the C++ ecosystem and was invited to the cpplang Slack. I was thrilled by the dynamic discussions on all things C++. Through this community, I learned about the C++ Alliance. I was surprised to find out at the time they were also funding this vibrant experience. In 2021, I joined the C++ Alliance. This was a breath of fresh air, allowing me to focus on meaningful work outside the constraints of academia. Collaborating with talented individuals within and outside the C++ Alliance was enriching. I could now concentrate on what I loved: contributing to the C++ ecosystem through Boost and standalone tools: a reality made possible by the C++ Alliance. Since then, I’ve maintained my libraries and assisted with existing ones. This involves the often-overlooked, thankless tasks vital to keeping libraries compatible with new compilers and bugs-free. As some move away from Boost for standalone projects, these libraries remain functional thanks to a few dedicated volunteers. Finding such qualified volunteers is rare and can't be taken for granted. Boost is notable to me for several reasons, many of which are tied to the community and my long-standing relationship with it: - Contributing to such an impactful project is incredibly rewarding. - The competence of the community members makes discussions engaging. - C++ is ideal for my projects, and Boost significantly enhances my productivity. I have no desire to switch languages. - Working with some of the best C++ engineers toward a common goal is fulfilling. - The cpplang Slack and the mailing list are excellent places for questions and discussions. - Giving back to the community, which has given me so much, feels right. I love coding, and there’s no better place for me than here. The C++ Alliance has made so much of this possible for me and the Boost community.

Am 10.07.24 um 16:47 schrieb David Sankel via Boost:

For those who got involved in Boost within the last couple years, how did you hear about boost? What attracted you to it? Boost was used at the place I worked at when I was a student. I quickly came to love the idea of RAII which was implemented in Boost (mainly smart pointers combined with Boost.Move). C++11 was just around the corner with experimental support by a few compilers but I had to stick to C++98 for work. Boost.Move and generally many Boost constructs provided many benefits of C++11 in C++98. Digging through the headers (source code is the best documentation ;-) ) also helped to improve my C++-fu.

Later I discovered an intricate bug in Boost.Serialization which severely affected a work project. Finding what went wrong and why, how to reproduce and fix it was quite a fun challenge (multiple shared objects). Next I introduced Boost and especially Boost.Locale for UTF8-support of (especially) paths on Windows in other projects. By that I found the not-yet-Boost library Nowide and used the "standalone" version of it. Later I pushed to finally include it in Boost and became a maintainer of that and later Boost.Locale. This was also in wake of "Boost is so huge" arguments which I could counter with "all we need is in Boost already". So I loved to see Boost as a complementary standard library especially until broad support of C++11. Learning quickly that "untested code is broken" I did a lot of work on CI also in the context of Boost. What kept me here is the continuous learning opportunity by conversing with the other Boost developers. Alex PS: Also not affiliated with the C++ Alliance

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 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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