December 2017 - Vol. 60 No. 12

Features

Opinion Editor's letter Dec 1 2017

Computing Is the Secret Ingredient (well, Not So Secret)

Computer science is both a powerful enabler of rapid advances in all intellectual fields and a disruptor driving furious revolutions in commerce and society worldwide.

Andrew A. Chien

Computing Applications

Opinion Letters to the editor Dec 1 2017

Start CS Students Off with Industry Best Practices

Lamenting that CS students are often not exposed to best practices in the classroom, Thomas A. Limoncelli offered advice for serving students better in "Four Ways to Make CS and IT More Immersive" (Oct. 2017). We agree with that sentiment.

CACM Staff

Computing Profession

Opinion Cerf's up Dec 1 2017

Now For Something Entirely Different

This column is about three books I have just read. Two get at the proliferation of wrong but persuasive assertions about the past, present, or future. The third appeals to logic and humility.

Vinton G. Cerf

Computing Profession

BLOG@CACM Dec 1 2017

Building Tools to Help Students Learn to Program

Philip Guo summarizes his first three years of research into building tools to support those learning computer programming.

Philip Guo

Computing Profession

News Dec 1 2017

Perovskites Boost Solar-Cell Potential

New materials could allow cheaper, more efficient solar cells for both traditional and novel applications.

Don Monroe

Architecture and Hardware

News Dec 1 2017

Gaming Machine Learning

Game simulations are driving improvements in machine learning for autonomous vehicles and other devices.

Samuel Greengard

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

News Dec 1 2017

Parallel Computational Thinking

Applications must be programmed to process instructions in parallel to take full advantage of the new multicore processors.

Keith Kirkpatrick

Architecture and Hardware

Parallel Computational Thinking, illustration

Opinion The profession of IT Dec 1 2017

The Forgotten Engineer

Engineering has been marginalized by the unhealthy belief that engineering is the application of science.

Peter J. Denning

Computing Applications

The Forgotten Engineer, illustrative photo

Opinion Broadening participation Dec 1 2017

Community Colleges: A Resource For Increasing Equity and Inclusion in Computer Science Education

Challenging a simplistic pathway metaphor.

Louise Ann Lyon and Jill Denner

Computing Profession

Community Colleges: A Resource for Increasing Equity and Inclusion in Computer Science Education, illustrative photo

Opinion Kode vicious Dec 1 2017

Cold, Hard Cache

On the implementation and maintenance of caches.

George V. Neville-Neil

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoint Dec 1 2017

The Death of Big Software

We are past the tipping point in the transition away from 20th-century big software architectures.

Stephen J. Andriole

Computing Profession

Opinion Viewpoint Dec 1 2017

Lousy Advice to the Lovelorn

The 37% rule is rarely applicable in real-world situations. It is certainly entirely wrong-headed as advice for getting married.

Ernest Davis

Computing Applications

Lousy Advice to the Lovelorn, illustrative photo

Practice Dec 1 2017

Bitcoin’s Academic Pedigree

The concept of cryptocurrencies is built from forgotten ideas in research literature.

Arvind Narayanan and Jeremy Clark

Computing Applications

Bitcoin's Academic Pedigree, illustration

Practice Dec 1 2017

XML and JSON Are Like Cardboard

Cardboard surrounds and protects stuff as it crosses boundaries.

Pat Helland

Computing Applications

Practice Dec 1 2017

Research For Practice: Vigorous Public Debates in Academic Computer Science

Expert-curated guides to the best of CS research.

John Regehr and Peter Bailis

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Contributed articles Dec 1 2017

Cybersecurity, Nuclear Security, Alan Turing, and Illogical Logic

Cyber deterrence, like nuclear deterrence, depends on our adversaries being rational enough to be deterred by our threats but us not by theirs.

Martin E. Hellman

Computing Applications

Cybersecurity, Nuclear Security, Alan Turing, and Illogical Logic, illustration

Research and Advances Contributed articles Dec 1 2017

Technology-Driven Changes in Work and Employment

Even when surrounded by ubiquitous computing, humans should be encouraged to do what they do better than machines.

Ramiro Montealegre and Wayne F. Cascio

Architecture and Hardware

Technology-Driven Changes in Work and Employment, illustration

Research and Advances Review articles Dec 1 2017

Energy Efficiency: A New Concern For Application Software Developers

Development of energy-efficient software is hindered by a lack of knowledge and a lack of tools.

Gustavo Pinto and Fernando Castor

Computing Applications

Energy Efficiency: A New Concern for Application Software Developers, illustration

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2017

Technical Perspective: Pricing Information (and Its Implications)

"A Theory of Pricing Private Data," by Chao Li, et al., introduces a fascinating and complicated issue that arises on the buy-side of the market when buyers are interested in multiple linear functions of the same dataset.

Aaron Roth

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2017

A Theory Of Pricing Private Data

We describe the foundations of a market in which those seeking access to data must pay for it and individuals are compensated for the loss of privacy they may suffer.

Chao Li, Daniel Yang Li, Gerome Miklau, and Dan Suciu

Computing Applications

A Theory of Pricing Private Data, illustration

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2017

Technical Perspective: A Simple, Elegant Approach to Non-Numeric Parallelization

"Automatically Accelerating Non-Numerical Programs by Architecture-Compiler Co-Design," by Simone Campanoni, et al., proposes a modest hardware extension to support a new parallel execution model for small, non-numeric loops.

James Larus

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2017

Automatically Accelerating Non-Numerical Programs By Architecture-Compiler Co-Design

HELIX-RC is a compiler/microprocessor co-design that opens loops to parallelization by decoupling communication from thread execution in conventional multicore architectures.

Computing Applications

Automatically Accelerating Non-Numerical Programs by Architecture-Compiler Co-Design, illustration

Opinion Last byte Dec 1 2017

Grooming the Leaders of Tomorrow

Former Stanford University president John Hennessy is the academic architect behind the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program.

Leah Hoffmann

Computing Profession

former Stanford University president John Hennessy

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