January 2008 - Vol. 51 No. 1

This anniversary issue represents how Communications has covered the depth and breadth of the computing field over the decades, as well as its growth, and the industry’s shifts in technological focus. The name "Association for Computing Machinery" once explained the primary interest of our members. Of course, over the last 50 years, both ACM and […]

Communications of the ACM has been most fortunate to have had seven authoritative stewards lead its editorial direction over most of these last 50 years. The editors-in-chief (EICs) who have served this publication, and the computer science community, with their foresight and dedication to the cause are some of the prime reasons why CACM continues […]

As noted in these introductory pages, Alan Perlis was the founding Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of Communications, with the first issue debuting in January 1958. He resigned upon being elected ACM President in June 1962. During his tenure, CACM content was organized into departments, such as "Scientific Applications," "Standards," "Programming Languages," among others. I was the editor of a section on "Business Applications."

The battle of the covers. That was the beginning. I had just taken over as Editor-in-Chief of CACM in 1969. Don Madden was then ACM's Executive Director. With undoubtedly some justification, he was concerned that the covers of CACM were too drab and were not attractive to an increasingly broad base of membership. He wanted to brighten them up.

Like Stuart Lynn, I had been a department editor for CACM before becoming its EIC. In fact, the "Computer Systems" department was initiated by Kelly Gotlieb during his editorship. He sent me a letter enclosing a submitted paper that he thought should be published in CACM; however, it fit no existing department. It would appear in the September 1965 issue: Reilly and Federighi's "On Reversible Subroutines and Computers that Run Backwards." A subsequent contribution, of considerably more lasting significance, was published in that same issue: E.W. Dijkstra's "Solution of a Problem in Concurrent Program Control." Indeed, the paper initiated a whole new subdiscipline in the computer operating systems area. Eventually, "Computer Systems" became the department for software/hardware systems papers such as those that now appear in Transactions on Computer Systems (TOCS).

After a 10-year struggle within ACM to define a Journal for All Members (JAM), a "new" Communications was launched in the cold of February 1983. CACM was to leave behind its pure research past and transform into a professionally useful, interesting, monthly magazine for all members. The CACM that evolved in the decade following 1983 is substantially the form you find today. I was the EIC who managed the transition.

Communications has always had a special meaning to me since the beginning of my career, both professionally and personally. My fascination with computers started in the late 1950s when I was pursuing my doctoral degree at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The Illiac-I was among the early computers built in the U.S. and I had the privilege to use it extensively in my dissertation.

The French adage "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," or, the more things change, the more they stay the same, still rings true today. Reading over the essays of my predecessors, one recognizes the thread that runs through all of them, which is the constant need of CACM to reinvent itself. In fact, I discovered an April 24, 1964 report from a Commission of Thoughtful Persons to the ACM Council that stated "It was felt that Communications was becoming too much of a journal and that a re-evaluation is in order." I suspect this ongoing need to rethink CACM, a flagship publication for professionals working in a fast-moving and ever-changing field, will stay with us for the foreseeable future.

Many of the leading voices in computing have graced the pages of Communications over the past 50 years. Their research, opinions, and professional journeys have influenced countless future leaders, and will continue to do so. In this section, we’ve invited some of the most prominent among them to look into the future of the field […]

Considering how intellectual property law has evolved in response to advances in computing technologies.