Technical session at the October C++ meeting?

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-08-14 16:52:11

It strikes me that the Boost libraries to be proposed to the C++ Committee 
for the Library Technical Report will have an easier time of it if they are 
introduced to the committee well before hand.  While most of the Library 
Working Group members are familiar with Boost, they may not be aware of 
specific libraries.  And some of the committee members who concentrate on 
core language issues may be completely unfamiliar with what we do at Boost.

An evening "technical session" is a common way to give the committee an 
overview of proposals and work-in-progress.  That was how the STL was first 
presented, for example.

I've checked with Matt Austern, the Library Working Group chair, and he 
also thinks an evening technical session presentation would be 
worthwhile.  My mental model is a quick introduction to Boost, and then an 
overview of the  libraries we plan to submit in the early going.

Of course that brings up the questions like:

* What libraries would the Boost membership like to see submitted?

* What are the criteria (as seen by Boost, and as seen by the committee)?

* How do we package (or batch) the submissions? One big submission? Lots of 
little ones?

My own feeling is that we ought to start with the most mature Boost 
libraries, submitted in batched proposals somehow related to 
dependencies.  Individual libraries would be too small a granularity; 
related libraries should proceed together through the process.  But too big 
a proposal will choke the Library Working Group's ability to digest new 
stuff.

Comments?  Anyone like to try to put together a preliminary list of 
libraries?

--Beman