Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!mips!apple!veritas!amdcad!sono!thomas
From: thomas@sono.uucp (Chris Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.org.acm
Subject: Re: New format of CACM
Message-ID: <1991May3.230502.5076@sono.uucp>
Date: 3 May 91 23:05:02 GMT
References: <1991May2.115138.1323@rti.rti.org>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Acuson; Mountain View, California
Lines: 37

duncan@rti.rti.org (Stephen Duncan) writes:

>What do you folks think of the new format of CACM?  I don't think it
>is appropriate for a professional journal.  I find the fonts used for
>the table of contents and article sections difficult to scan.  The
>page used to start articles look more like something in an ad, and
>thus skippable, rather than something to read. [...]

Finally... a thread with major social significance! :-)

I remember the first time I saw the new 'n improved CACM.  My first
reaction was that the designers had been reading too much "Spy" magazine.
(I feared that the next issue might have pictures of Peter Neumann and
Herb Grosch under the headline "Switched at Birth?")

Not only are the typefaces often unattractive, sometimes they're just
plain inappropriate.  For instance, take those *huge* >'s and <'s that
get used in so many expressions.  Nothing like a few of them to break
the appearance of a page!

Seriously, though, I think the disaster that's CACM today is a product
of the conflict over what CACM should "be".  Is it a journal, or is it
popular press?  As the old commercial goes, "it's both!"  Unfortunately,
in trying to be both, it ends up being neither.  Scholarly papers get
the clip-art, fonts-a-plenty treatment to make them appear more accessible,
and this very presentation can often make them appear less respectable.

The CACM redesign(s) take the magazine a *long* way from the days of
the black 'n blue covers, but those research papers keep showing up!
That's a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your opinion about what
CACM should be.  However, all the parties involved in CACM ought to start
talking to each other, or else we're going to be stuck with this mishmash
being the "primary service" that most members receive.

-- 
Chris Thomas                                    (415) 969-9112 x2994
S4/7 b g+ l y+ z+ n+ o+ x-/+ a++ u v-/+ j++     thomas@sono.uucp