Re: A question for folks here

From: Matt Borland (matt_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-07-10 17:57:57

> 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