ISO gears are grinding

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-09-20 18:25:00

Tom Plum (Convenor of WG21, the ISO C++ Standards Committee) reports that 
the SC22 Plenary this morning adopted this resolution:

 >Resolution 01-08: New Work Item for Approval Ballot
 >
 >ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 instructs its secretariat to circulate the proposed 
New
 >Work Item contained in document SC 22 N3277, Technical Report of Type 2 
on
 >C++ Library Extensions (based on ISO/IEC 14882), to SC22 National Bodies
 >for a three-month Approval Letter Ballot.

What that means in ordinary English is that the ISO gears are grinding 
toward giving the C++ Standards Committee official permission to begin work 
on a "C++ Library Extensions" non-normative Technical Report (TR).

The Boost libraries we want to see in the next C++ standard will be first 
proposed for inclusion in the TR, as a prelude to full standardization.

These plodding legalistic steps may seem to have little relevance to an 
Internet-based project like Boost, but the careful consideration at each 
step of the way is why ISO standards have such broad reach and long-term 
momentum.

--Beman