Passwords Getting Painful, Computing Still Blissful
Jason Hong wonders how anyone can follow the mounting complexity of password rules, and Daniel Reed ponders the attractions of computing.
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Research Questions About MOOCs
Predictions abound on the Internet that MOOCs are about to destroy the university. (Call it, "the MOOCopalypse.") From a stance informed by computing education research, what else would we like to know about MOOCs before we replace our current higher-education system with a MOOC-based one?
When Reviews Do More Than Sting
Bertrand Meyer wonders why malicious reviews run rampant in computer science.
Athena Award Nominations Closing Soon!
Don't miss out on the chance to nominate someone for an Athena Award from ACM-W.
Software Engineering in the Venice of the North
ESEC-FSE 2013 (in Saint Petersburg,, 18-26 August) is the place to be for software engineering in 2013.
Who Earned First Computer Science Ph.D.?
Guest blogger Ralph L. London describes his efforts to provide a more accurate historical record of the first computer science Ph.D.s in the United States.
Conferences: Publication, Communication, Sanction
Conferences have three roles; these roles should be separated.
Teaching Real-World Programming
In this post, I describe a ubiquitous style of programming that, to my knowledge, has never been formally taught in the classroom.
Daniel Reed on straddling the intellectual divide between technology experts and policymakers.
Little’s Law in the Exascale Era
When performance optimization, reliability requirements, and energy management are convolved with component costs, device physics, system software services and application characteristics, the constraint-based optimization problems become dauntingly complex. Little's Law speaks to all of these issues and more.
Education as Engineering: The Benefits of Combining Education with Engineering
The relationship between education and engineering runs deep. Enhancing the relationship helps both.
Is It Time to Change How Software Developers Are Hired?
Considerations of how conventional hiring practices prevent diversification of software development groups.
Computer Science: Filling the Education Pipeline Gap
Computer Science Education Week 2012 Chair Ruthe Farmer talks about the importance of CS education and looks to you to pledge your support.
Levels of Abstraction; Pre-Teens and Career Choices
Mark Guzdial writes about the need for programming languages to support multimedia at all levels. Judy Robertson shares insights about 12-year-old students' lack of understanding about computer science.
The Problem Is That We’re Just Too Darn Useful: CS Ed and State Public Policy
Is Computer Science a vocational skill or an academic subject? While many of us might say "yes" and "yes," public policy in the states is increasingly requiring a choice between those two answers.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Academia . . .
Aria Haghighi, an award-winning natural language processing researcher, describes his trek from a tenure-track faculty job at UMass-Amherst to his decision to leave academia and found a startup.
What Does ‘Big Data’ Mean? (Part 3)
The "big velocity" use case is examined in this third post in a series on big data.
Belinda Parmar's book Little Miss Geek highlights the gender imbalances within the tech industry, offering practical suggestions of how businesses can overcome this. It's a great message, but I do protest at the suggestion that women need help with their spatial abilities to help them succeed with their programming!
Exciting ‘Big Data’ Medical Applications
A quick look at two exciting medical applications of big data analysis.
HPC, Big Data and the Peloponnesian War
We need a concord and strategic research investment plan that recognizes the shared importance of HPC and big data. Both warrant investments in basic research, and both need investments in large-scale infrastructure deployments. In a time of straitened budgets, this will not be easy, and it will undoubtedly require political compromise.
Shape the Future of Computing
ACM encourages its members to take a direct hand in shaping the future of the association. There are more ways than ever to get involved.
Get InvolvedCommunications of the ACM (CACM) is now a fully Open Access publication.
By opening CACM to the world, we hope to increase engagement among the broader computer science community and encourage non-members to discover the rich resources ACM has to offer.
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