The ISO/ANSI C++ Standards Committee(s)

Herb has served as secretary and then convener (chair) of the ISO and U.S. (ANSI/INCITS) C++ standards committee for over a decade. His main current interests are in the Evolution Working Group, working on language and library features for the next generation of the C++ standard (C++0x), particularly in the area of concurrency including the new threading libraries and memory model, as well as other extensions, notably lambda functions and closures.

The official names of the ISO and U.S. committees are:

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 - C++ (ISO C++ committee)

INCITS PL22.16 - C++ (the U.S. C++ committee, often called the "ANSI C++ committee" -- although more accurately INCITS is a separate organization that is not a part of ANSI but is accredited by ANSI to develop U.S. standards) (previously called X3J16 and J16)

These two groups together are often referred to in the singular as "the C++ committee" because they meet and do their work together. The meetings are always in the same room at the same time, and most votes are taken twice: a U.S. vote under one-company-one-vote rules to determine how the U.S. will vote a minute later in the immediately following ISO vote, followed by an ISO vote under one-country-one-vote rules to determine the ISO decision.

Links

Here are some useful links related to the C++ committee and standard, on all compilers and platforms:

ISO C++ standards committee website, the committee's official home on the web. Note that some parts are for internal committee use only, but lots of good information is available to the public. See in particular:

The C++ Standard Core Language Issues List, a list of known issues in the C++ language itself (e.g., classes, templates, exceptions, namespaces) with summaries of the committee's discussion and status.

The C++ Standard Library Issues List, a list of known issues in the C++ standard library (e.g., containers, algorithms, iostreams, locales) with summaries of the committee's discussion and status.

The comp.std.c++ newsgroup, home of much public standards-related discussion and where many committee members hang out to talk about current and future Standard C++ issues. See also the related FAQ:

The comp.std.c++ FAQ, containing answers to frequently asked questions for comp.std.c++ (first-time posters, read this!).

Copyright © 2009 Herb Sutter