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