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From: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor)
Newsgroups: comp.databases,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Calendar Algorithm
Keywords: calendar algorithm
Message-ID: <29396@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Date: 27 Aug 90 17:45:39 GMT
References: <1115@nixsin.UUCP> <140352@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <669@dbase.A-T.COM>
Sender: news@athertn.Atherton.COM
Reply-To: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor)
Organization: Atherton Technology -- Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 37

> What is the ACM (guess: American Computing Monthly?,A magazine or so?).
> And what about the book?. Could anyone please e-mail me a short description
> of what it contains, and maybe an ISBN, price etc?


ACM is the Association for Computer Machinery.  It is one of the two
major professional societies for people working in the computer
field.  (The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
Computer Society is the other major professional society).  Both
societies publish
many important books (such as Collected Algorithms mentioned above) and
magazines (such as Communications of the ACM, IEEE Computer, IEEE
Software...).  They sponsor many conferences and special interest groups
(SIGs).  Both are based in the US, and sponsor most activities there,
but have international arms.  Much time and effort can be saved be
reusing work already
done by others and published by these societies.  Good technical libraries
well have many of their publications available, so they are accessible if
you want them, probably even in Singapore.

Note, I posted this rather than replying privately, because I have
found a number of US educated engineers don't know about or refer to the
Collected Algorithms of the ACM and other useful ACM and IEEE books
and journals.  I believe that this may be a defect in our current
computer science engineering programs, where we often encourage reinvention
rather than library research and and reuse.  Later when these engineers
move from the halls of academia into industry becomes the dreaded
Not Invented Here syndrome that undermines reuse strategies).  The number
of people who are unfamiliar with Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad, Doug
Engelbart's NLS Augment system, and other contributions of the 60s is
staggering, yet many people are trying to reinvent this same technology
today.  A historical perspective can often help one to develop "new"
technology more quickly.  We should at least be thankful that the
many people are once again "rediscovering" virtual memory--now for personal
computers.

Scott McGregor