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8<title>C++ Committee Meetings</title>
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13<h1>C++ Committee Meeting FAQ for Boost Members</h1>
14<p><b>Who can attend C++ Committee meetings?</b> Members of
15J16 (the INCITS/ANSI committee) or of a WG21 (ISO) member country committee
16(&quot;national body&quot; in
17ISO-speak). <a href="http://www.ncits.org/">
18INCITS</a> has broadened&nbsp; J16 membership requirements so anyone can
19join, regardless of nationality or employer.</p>
20<p>In addition, a small number of &quot;technical experts&quot; who are not committee
21members can also attend meetings. The &quot;technical expert&quot; umbrella is broad enough to cover
22the
23Boost members who attend meetings.</p>
24<p><b>When and where is the next meeting?</b> There are two meetings a year. The
25Fall meeting is usually in North America, and the Spring meeting is usually
26outside North America. See a general
27<a href="http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/meetings">list of meeting locations and
28dates</a>. Detailed information about a particular meeting, including hotel
29information, is usually provided in a paper appearing in one of
30<a href="#Mailing">mailings</a> for the prior meeting. If there isn't a link to
31it on the <a href="http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/meetings">
32Meetings</a> web page, you will have to go to
33the committee's <a href="http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/">
34Papers</a> page and search a bit.</p>
35<p><b>Is there a fee for attending meetings?</b> No, but there can be a lot of
36incidental expenses like travel, lodging, and meals, and there is a $US 800 a
37year INCITS fee to become a voting member.</p>
38<p><b>What is the schedule?</b>&nbsp; The meetings start at 9:00AM on
39Monday, and 8:30AM other days, unless otherwise announced. It is best to arrive
40a half-hour early to grab a good seat, some coffee, tea, or donuts, and to say
41hello to people. (There is also a Sunday evening a WG21 administrative meeting,
42which is closed except to delegates from national bodies.)</p>
43<p>The meetings generally end on Friday, although there is discussion of
44extending them one extra day until the next standard ships. The last day the meeting&nbsp; is generally over by 11:00AM. Because
45the last day's meeting is for formal votes only, it is primarily of interest only to
46actual committee
47members.</p>
48<p>Sometimes there are evening technical sessions; the details aren't
49usually available until the Monday morning meeting.&nbsp; There may be a
50reception one evening, and, yes, significant others are
51invited. Again, details usually&nbsp;become available Monday morning.</p>
52<p><b>What actually happens at the meetings?</b> Monday morning an hour or two
53is spent in full committee on administrivia, and then the committee breaks up
54into working groups (Core, Library, and Enhancements). The full committee also
55gets together later in the week to hear working group progress reports.</p>
56<p>The working groups are where most technical activities take place.&nbsp; Each
57active issue that appears on an issues list is discussed, as are papers from the
58mailing. Most issues are non-controversial and disposed of in a few minutes.
59Technical discussions are often led by long-term committee members, often
60referring to past decisions or longstanding working group practice. Sometimes a
61controversy erupts. It takes first-time attendees awhile to understand the
62discussions and how decisions are actually made. The working group chairperson
63moderates.</p>
64<p>Sometimes straw polls are taken. In a straw poll anyone attending can vote,
65in contrast to the formal votes taken by the full committee, where only voting
66members can vote.</p>
67<p>Lunch break is an hour and a half.&nbsp; Informal subgroups often lunch
68together; a lot of technical problems are discussed or actually solved at lunch,
69or later at dinner. In many ways these discussions involving only a few people
70are the most interesting. Sometimes during the regular meetings, a working group
71chair will break off a sub-group to tackle a difficult problem. </p>
72<p><b>Do I have to stay at the main hotel?</b> No, and committee members on
73tight budgets often stay at other, cheaper, hotels. (The main hotels are usually
74chosen because they have large meeting rooms available, and thus tend to be pricey.)
75The advantage of staying at the main hotel is that it is then easier to
76participate in the off-line discussions which can be at least as interesting
77as what actually happens in the scheduled meetings.</p>
78<p><b>What do people wear at meetings?</b>&nbsp; Programmer casual. No neckties
79to be seen. </p>
80<p><b>What should I bring to a meeting?</b> It is almost essential to have a
81laptop computer along. There is a committee LAN with a wiki and Internet connectivity.
82Wireless connectivity has become the norm, although there is usually a wired hub
83or two for those needed wired access.</p>
84<p><b>What should I do to prepare for a meeting?</b> It is helpful to have
85downloaded the mailing or individual papers for the
86meeting, and read any papers you are interested in. Familiarize yourself with
87the issues lists if you haven't done so already. Decide which of the working
88groups you want to attend.</p>
89<p><b>What is a &quot;<a name="Paper">Paper</a>&quot;?</b> An electronic document containing issues,
90proposals, or anything else the committee is interested in. Very little gets
91discussed at a meeting, much less acted upon, unless it is presented in a paper.&nbsp;
92<a href="http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/">Papers are available</a> 
93to anyone. Papers don't just appear randomly; they become available four (lately
94six) times a
95year, before and after each meeting. Committee members often refer to a paper by
96saying what mailing it was in: &quot;See the pre-Redmond mailing.&quot;</p>
97<p><b>What is a &quot;<a name="Mailing">Mailing</a>&quot;?</b> A mailing is the
98set of papers prepared four to six times a year before and after each meeting,
99or between meetings.&nbsp; It
100is physically just a
101<a href="http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/mailings/">.zip or .gz</a> 
102archive of
103all the papers for a meeting. Although the mailing's archive file itself is only available to committee members and technical
104experts, the contents (except copies of the standard) are available to the
105general public as individual papers. The ways of ISO are
106inscrutable.</p>
107<p><b>What is a &quot;Reflector&quot;?</b> The committee's mailing lists are
108called &quot;reflectors&quot;. There are a number of them; &quot;all&quot;, &quot;core&quot;, &quot;lib&quot;, and &quot;ext&quot; 
109are the main ones. As a courtesy, Boost technical experts can be added to
110committee reflectors at the request of a committee member. </p>
111<hr>
112<p>Revised
113<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" S-Type="EDITED" S-Format="%B %d, %Y" startspan -->April 17, 2005<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" endspan i-checksum="17669" --></p>
114<p>© Copyright Beman Dawes, 2002</p>
115<p> Use, modification, and distribution are subject to the Boost Software
116License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">
117LICENSE_1_0.txt</a> or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt">
118www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)</p>
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