Re: A question for folks here

From: Ruben Perez (rubenperez038_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-07-10 21:38:11

> For those who got involved in Boost within the last couple years, how did
> you hear about boost? What attracted you to it?

I first got to know Boost when I started with C++ in 2016, in a
robotics environment (ROS used it). I always thought of it as "where
you go to look when you need a good quality library". For me it was
just some great software some unknown, unreachable people provided for
free.

I then got invited to the cpplang slack by a standards committee
member. I wanted to do some more C++, something different to what I
was doing at the time, as it wasn't very rewarding. I tried writing
some language proposals, and decided that wasn't my thing - I'm more
into writing libraries, tests and docs :)

I've always worked in networking and knew a little bit of Asio. I saw
libraries like JSON being developed, and thought "Python has many
things we don't have, so I should write some of them". I happened to
be familiar with MySQL, so I studied its protocol and wrote a simple
Asio-based driver in my commute time (I profoundly regret today having
chosen MySQL over Postgres, but that's a different story). I found the
courage to share my code in the cpplang slack and Chris Mazakas and
Richard Hodges convinced me to reach the ML and propose the library
for Boost.

Some months afterwards, the C++ Alliance started sponsoring my work.
That has allowed me to develop features in the library I wouldn't have
had the time to code otherwise.

>
> For those who have been around for a while, what keeps you here? Why do you
> stay engaged?

There's brilliant people here, so I learn a lot. I also feel that
having a library in Boost is a responsibility towards my users, so I
try to be helpful. I also enjoy a lot when people ask questions (e.g.
the #boost-asio channel) as it's pretty rewarding to share your
knowledge back to the community (specially the one you've acquired
here :))

Regards,
Ruben.