It’s Time For New C++ Leadership

C++ is at an inflection point. The C++ Committee has been successful over the past decade. Yet the landscape has changed, and we must adapt to be successful in the future.

We need engaged new leadership to address the challenges we face, and to build the next generation of C++ leadership. I, Bryce Adelstein Lelbach, am seeking the U.S. nomination for the position of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 Convenor to provide such leadership.

I’ve been a member of the C++ Committee for 7 years and in leadership for the past 4, serving as chair of the Library Evolution, Library Evolution Incubator, and Tooling subgroups. I am an experienced ISO convenor (JTC1/AG18) and INCITS officer (chair of Pl22, Vocabulary, ANSDIT, and editor for the Inclusive Terminology Guidelines). I have more than a decade of experience organizing within the C++ community. I co-founded and grew C++Now and CppCon into two of our most prominent conferences. I’m a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion who is trusted by the historically under-represented groups in our community.

Focus On Priorities

The C++ Committee and the number of proposals we receive has grown 10x over the last decade. For the last 6 years, we have had a significant backlog of papers waiting for review. In some cases, papers wait years to be reviewed by a subgroup. As Bjarne wrote in P0977, “most people [on the C++ Committee] are working independently towards non-shared goals”. We are 300 individual authors, not 1 team. We lack focus and a shared set of priorities. As Convenor, I would:

• Expand and empower the Direction Group, and ask them to develop a Standing Document that defines our Technical Roadmap, including goals and priorities. The entire Committee will vote on the adoption and modification of this document in plenary, which will help give it a mandate.
• Ask authors proposing major work to first propose an addition to the Technical Roadmap prior to the investment of substantial Committee time and resources on said work.
• Set realistic expectations about our time and resources. Define, track, and frequently communicate metrics for paper processing, such as review throughput, review latency and backlog depth.
• Ask subgroup chairs to develop a “good first contribution” list that recommends tasks for newcomers that will decrease the Committee’s outstanding work. Tasks would include: reviewing existing proposals, providing requested field experience for existing proposals, becoming authors of orphaned proposals, etc.
• Communicate that it is okay for us to say “no” to a proposal. “It is much easier to accept a proposal than reject it” – D&E.

Modernize Collaboration

Before the pandemic, the C++ Committee primarily reviewed and discussed proposals at face-to-face meetings. This was successful in the past, but has downsides: it artificially raises the bar for entry for newcomers, creates an artificial urgency to make decisions during the meeting, and can be inefficient as it makes the entire room focus on one subject when just a few participants may have been needed. Our heavy reliance on face-to-face meetings seems outdated to the next generation of programmers who are used to modern collaboration tools that have become prevalent over the last two decades.

When the pandemic began, I developed and implemented procedures for the C++ Committee to continue to work remotely. As we transition from fully remote operations to hybrid meetings, we must continue to innovate and modernize our collaboration process. As Convenor, I will:

• Ask subgroup chairs to continue the best parts of our remote process and procedures:
  • Hold regular telecons, but decrease their number and frequency so that we can remain focused.
  • Coordinate telecon scheduling across subgroups to avoid conflicts.
  • Use electronic straw polls to confirm decisions made in both face-to-face and remote Evolution and Library Evolution meetings.
  • Expand asynchronous review and decision-making on our mailing lists.
  • Explore alternatives to mailing lists for asynchronous collaboration.
• Ensure remote attendees have an equal seat at all future face-to-face meetings:
  • Require that future venues have an excellent telepresence capability in our meeting rooms.
  • Place a “remote helper” in each room who will facilitate participation by remote attendees.
• Form a Scribe Group, which would work with subgroup chairs before face-to-face and remote meetings to:
  • Ensure that a volunteer scribe is available.
  • Develop recommended practices and training material for scribes.

Unify Infrastructure

The digital infrastructure that we use is aging, ad-hoc, inconsistent, insecure, and esoteric. When we had 30 people, this was an annoyance; with 300, it’s an existential problem. Currently, our infrastructure is spread across 8 platforms, and you need to know 3 shared passwords and have 3 accounts to access all of it:

Platform	Purpose	Credentials
wg21.link	URL Shortener
open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21	Proposal Publication & Archive	Single Shared Password
lists.isocpp.org	List Subscription & Archive	Single Shared Password
wiki.edg.com	Minutes, Guides, & Tutorials	Single Shared Password
isocpp.org/std	Guides & Tutorials
isocpp.org/papers	Proposal Submission	Account System
documents.isocpp.org	Calendar, Straw Polls	Account System
github.com/cplusplus	Proposal Status & Tracking	Account System

There have been incremental efforts at improving and centralizing our infrastructure over the past few years, but we are still far from where we need to be. As Convenor, I will make it a priority to move all our digital infrastructure to isocpp.org, under a single unified login system.

Excel at Diversity, Inclusion, and Growth

The first step in fixing a problem is acknowledging it. The C++ Committee and community is not as diverse or inclusive as it should be. This threatens C++’s long term legacy. For C++ to continue to succeed in the coming decades, we must attract and retain the next generation of programmers who expect tech communities to be welcoming and diverse. We need leadership that is trusted by historically under-represented groups. As Convenor, diversity, inclusion, safety, and growing the next generation of C++ Committee leadership will be my top priorities. I will:

• Enforce and build confidence in our Codes of Conduct.
• Ask our Code of Conduct Group to give anonymized transparency reports at plenary meetings.
• Form an Onboarding Group, which will develop and maintain our documentation and tutorials about the Committee process, and serve as an approachable point of contact for those who may feel uncomfortable asking chairs or prominent members for help.
• Encourage and aid those seeking to form new National Bodies, especially in regions under-represented today.