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From: erspert@athena.mit.edu (Ellen R. Spertus)
Subject: Good SIGs (was Re: It's the ACM Role Playing Game!)
Message-ID: <1991May30.200055.5801@athena.mit.edu>
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Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
References: <15450.28425cce@zeus.unomaha.edu> <1991May29.073751.10790@sics.se> <15476.284397a6@zeus.unomaha.edu>
Date: Thu, 30 May 91 20:00:55 GMT
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I'll second the recommendation of SIGPLAN.  SIGPLAN Notices isn't
always the most interesting newsletter in the world, but that's not
their fault.  It does seem to come out often (every month, I think).
More important, I am getting many good proceedings.  As far as I'm
concerned, the ASPLOS proceedings alone are worth my dues.  I'm also
looking forward to the PEPM proceedings this summer.  It's a joke that
the student dues for SIGPLAN were $8.  A bargain at twice the price!
It makes up for my not liking CACM.

I'd also like to recommend SIGARCH.  Its newsletter, Computer
Architecture News, doesn't come out as frequently, but I enjoy the
articles very much.  They seem to send fewer proceedings, but they
sometimes include articles from conferences in CAN.  (I received a
second ASPLOS from SIGARCH.  Had I been a member of SIGOPS, I'd've
gotten a third.)  

Of course, my preference for CAN over SIGPLAN Notices could just mean
that I'm more interested in the subject matter (although, in general,
I think I am more interested in compiler and language issues than
architecture).  If you want to know what SIGs you should belong to, go
to the library and look through the newsletters, seeing how much you
enjoy them and how frequently they come out.  It may take some
detecting to figure out how many proceedings they send out, arguably
the most important point.

					Ellen Spertus