Editorial Pointers

This is truly a universal issue, ranging in editorial scope from the national discussion on the licensing of software engineers, to the challenges of creating collaborative design environments that operate on a global scale, to the search for intelligent life beyond Earth. Along this trip, we make stops to debate the future of UML, to read the wonders of the World-Wide Telescope, to examine how galactic animations are rendered, and much more.

We begin with a special section on computer-supported cooperative work that focuses on the formidable task of creating environments for design teams to work effectively on the same project—usually from different locations, often in different parts of the world. The section spotlights the latest in collaborative design environments, particularly the latest in Java-, XML-, and Web-based approaches.

We also present a spirited debate on the future of UML. Proposals for UML2 are now under consideration, and what’s clear is the future is unclear. We present an editorial debate, piloted by Joaquin Miller, chief architect of Financial Systems Architects in New York, presenting five impassioned and contrary commentaries on determining what UML should be.

Another industry issue that never fails to spark debate is whether software engineers should be licensed. John Knight and Nancy Leveson detail their experiences as co-chairs of an ACM task force that investigated the implications of licensing software engineers and discuss their findings and recommendations.

We follow those sentiments with some voices from the front lines, namely Texas and Canada, where the practice of licensing is well under way. We hear from representatives of both sides of the licensing issue and learn about the impacts of this practice.

In addition, Gray and Szalay depict the creation of a virtual telescope that not only offers a new window for viewing the cosmic structure, but will also drive the next generation of computational science. Anderson et. al. detail the SETI@home project, an unparalleled effort using public-resource computing to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And Genetti illustrates how a 40-billion-pixel visualization was rendered for a 9-billion-pixel display at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

Diane Crawford
Editor