Communications of the ACM
DEPARTMENT: Editor's letter
DEPARTMENT: Letters to the editor
DEPARTMENT: In the Virtual Extension
DEPARTMENT: ACM's FY09 annual report
DEPARTMENT: blog@CACM
DEPARTMENT: CACM online
COLUMN: News
COLUMN: Viewpoints
SECTION: Practice
SECTION: Contributed articles
SECTION: Review articles
SECTION: Research highlights
COLUMN: Last byte
SECTION: Virtual extension
More Debate, Please!
In this issue of Communications we have a debate that is quite a rarity in computing research: a technical debate. A pair of Contributed Articles …DEPARTMENT: Letters to the editor
Software Still As Much an Art As Science
C.A.R. Hoare's viewpoint "Retrospective: An Axiomatic Basis for Computer Programming" (Oct. 2009) reminded me of a saying attributed to both Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut and Yogi …DEPARTMENT: In the Virtual Extension
In the Virtual Extension
Communications' Virtual Extension brings more quality articles to ACM members. These articles are now available in the ACM Digital Library.DEPARTMENT: ACM's FY09 annual report
ACM's Annual Report
It's been an exhilarating first year as President of ACM. At the close of FY09, ACM stood as the largest educational and scientific computer society in the world. After seven consecutive years of steady growth, ACM ended the …DEPARTMENT: blog@CACM
Software Engineering, Smartphones and Health Systems, and Security Warnings
Software release cycles are usually long, measured in months, sometimes in years. Each of the stages—requirements, design, development, and testing — takes time. Recently, some …DEPARTMENT: CACM online
The Corollary of Empowerment
The unfilteredness of the Internet, while largely considered a plus, is taking some knocks. Abundant, easily accessible data sits side by side with "rumors, lies, and errors …COLUMN: News
Rebuilding For Eternity
Buildings collapse. Wind and rain beat them, temperatures cycle from freezing to blistering, and random strikes of lightning threaten sudden obliteration. Even …Amir Pnueli: Ahead of His Time
Remembering a legacy of practical and theoretical innovation.Automated Translation of Indian Languages
India faces a daunting task trying to manually translate among 22 official languages, but assistance, in the form of advanced technology enabled by a lot of hard work, is on the way.New Search Challenges and Opportunities
If search engines can extract more meaning from text and better understand what people are looking for, the Web's resources could be accessed more effectively.Future Internet Design Summit
The National Science Foundation's meeting on Internet architectures focused on designs related to emerging social and economic realities. The four-day, invitation-only summit drew 90 U.S.-based researchers …Robert Lovett Ashenhurst: 1929 - 2009
Former Communications editor-in-chief Robert L. Ashenhurst, who died last October at age 80, served ACM for 35 years with dedication, humor, and panache, according to fellow ACM volunteers.ACM and India
ACM is in the process of establishing ACM India as a legal entity and will hold its first conference in late January. Four A.M. Turing award winners, including Barbara Liskov …COLUMN: Viewpoints
The Evolution of Platform Thinking
How platform adoption can be an important determinant of product and technological success.In Praise of Bad Programmers
A tale illustrating the difference between individual and team skills.Unstandard Standardization: The Case of Biology
How applicable are the approaches adopted by information and communication technology standards-setting organizations to biological standards?What Should We Teach New Software Developers? Why?
Fundamental changes to computer science education are required to better address the needs of industry.Great Computing Museums of the World (Part One)
The first of a two-part series highlighting several of the world's museums dedicated to preserving, exhibiting, and elucidating computing history.SECTION: Practice
Data in Flight
How streaming SQL technology can help solve the Web 2.0 data crunch.Other People's Data
Companies have access to more types of external data than ever before. How can they integrate it most effectively?Triple-Parity RAID and Beyond
As hard-drive capacities continue to outpace their throughput, the time has come for a new level of RAID.SECTION: Contributed articles
MapReduce and Parallel DBMSs: Friends or Foes?
Parallel DBMSs excel at efficient querying of large data sets; MapReduce-style systems excel at complex analytics and ETL tasks. Neither is good at what the other does well. Hence, the two technologies are complementary.MapReduce: A Flexible Data Processing Tool
MapReduce advantages over parallel databases include storage-system independence and fine-grain fault tolerance for large jobs.SECTION: Review articles
Can Automated Agents Proficiently Negotiate With Humans?
Exciting research in the design of automated negotiators is making great progress.SECTION: Research highlights
Technical Perspective: Native Client: A Clever Alternative
Google's Native Client is an intriguing new system that allows untrusted x86 binaries to run safely on bare metal.Native Client: A Sandbox For Portable, -Untrusted X86 Native Code
Native Client is a sandbox for untrusted x86 native code. It aims to give browser-based applications the computational performance of native applications without compromising safety.Technical Perspective: Schema Mappings: Rules For Mixing Data
When you search for products on Amazon.com, you are seeing results from thousands of vendor databases that were developed before Amazon existed. Did you ever wonder how that happens?Structural Characterizations of Schema-Mapping Languages
Information integration is a key challenge faced by all major organizations, business and governmental ones alike. Two research facets of this challenge that have received considerable …COLUMN: Last byte
Q&A: HP's Running Man
Prith Banerjee discusses collaborating with universities, his startup experiences, and Hewlett-Packard Lab's approach to research and development.SECTION: Virtual extension
