Communications of the ACM
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Why Is It Hard to Define Data Science?
Data science can be described as a science, as a research paradigm, as a research method, as a discipline, as a workflow, and…
From BLOG@CACM
Why Have There Been So Many Security Breaches Recently?
We're only five months into this year, but there have been a large number of sensational security breaches. Why have there been so many, and what can we do about...
From BLOG@CACM
Again: The One Sure Way to Advance Software Engineering
There is one proven way to improve the state of software, following the the airline industry's spectacular improvements of safety. The IT industry ignores it. Why...
From BLOG@CACM
2010 Seymour Cray and Sidney Fernbach Awards
This year, I again had the honor and privilege to chair the selection committee for the IEEE Seymour Cray and Sidney Fernbach awards, both of which were presented...
From BLOG@CACM
SC10: Green500 and Booth 'Awards'
SC10 has included several lists that rank supercomputers according to different criteria. The November 2010 Green500, focusing on energy efficiency, is out and...
From BLOG@CACM
Welcome to SC10: Opening Keynote, Top500 List
SC10—the premier conference for supercomputing—has begun. This post touches on a few highlights from the first day of the full technical program, including the...
From BLOG@CACM
Watts Humphrey: In Honor of a Pioneer
Watts Humphrey left us a few weeks ago. His contributions to professional software engineering have been essential.
From BLOG@CACM
To Videolecture or Not
Should conferences cover the cost of a videolecture or not? I say "yes."
From BLOG@CACM
HPC and the Excluded Middle
Betwixt and between ubiquitous consumer software and the ethereal realm of ultra-high-performance computing, lies the excluded middle, the world of day-to-day computational...
From BLOG@CACM
Can Randomly Generated Code Fix Software Bugs?
Can the principles of evolution be applied to software code and used to improve it? Stephanie Forrest thinks so—and has some encouraging data to prove it.
From BLOG@CACM
Fixing the Process of Computer Science Refereeing
There is a simple way to make refereeing better, almost overnight. It takes a bit of courage, but it would restore honesty and quality to the process.
From BLOG@CACM
Technology Transfer: A Contact Sport
The success or failure of technology transfer depends on many factors. No single mechanism is guaranteed to succeed, though there are many mechanisms that are likely...
From BLOG@CACM
Barbara Liskov Keynote Grace Hopper Conference
In her Grace Hopper keynote talk, Barbar Liskov reflected on her research journey and the work for which she was given the Turing Award.
From BLOG@CACM
Talking With PCAST
I told three stories at PCAST — The Google Story, Model Checking, and Machine Learning — as a way to illustrate the importance of sustained federal funding of basic...
From BLOG@CACM
Simple HPC Wins
You want to be the first person to design a successful, transistorized computer system, not the last person to design vacuum tube computer. Any designer's challenge...
From BLOG@CACM
The First ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing (SoCC)
Earlier this summer the first ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing was held in Indianapolis, Indiana. With three stellar keynotes and an exceptional program, the inaugural...
From BLOG@CACM
Why Is Great Design So Hard?
Why is good design so hard to accomplish for organizations? People are coming to the realization that design really matters, but it's not that they don't want to...
From BLOG@CACM
In Vivo, In Vitro, In Silico
These “grand challenges” of systems biology encompass almost every aspect of modern computing, from numerical and symbolic methods through data management and analytics...
From BLOG@CACM
Web Applications Crave Memory
Big web applications are hungry for RAM. They want lots of low power RAM. And they want little else.
From BLOG@CACM
The Future of Electronic Design Automation, According to IBM
To paraphrase Mr. Meyerson: A truly talented engineer is someone who, when his hand gets slammed in a doorway and is badly hurt, inserts his other hand in the doorway...
From BLOG@CACM