communications of the acm
5 President’s Letter
A New Beginning, A Fond Farewell By Stuart I. Feldman
7 Letters To The Editor
Words Both Kind and Contrary
8 CACM Online
Small Changes Hint at Bigger Things By David Roman
101 Careers
104 Puzzled
Delightful Graph Theory By Peter Winkler
9 Designing the Perfect Auction Distributed algorithmic mechanism design is a field at the intersection of computer science and economics. By Hal R. Varian
12 Access for All
Accessible technologies are improving the lives of millions of physically impaired people around the world. By Peggy Aycinena
15 Challenging Poverty Information and communication technologies are an important component in the generation of wealth. How can they help reduce poverty?
By Sarah Underwood
18 Remembering Jim
Both melancholy and reverential, the Jim Gray Tribute at the University of California at Berkeley honored one of computer science’s leading pioneers and visionaries.
By Michael Ross
19 The Profession of IT
Voices of Computing
The choir of engineers, mathematicians, and scientists who make up the bulk of our field better represents computing than the solo voice of the programmer.
By Peter J. Denning
22 From the Front Lines
Software Development Amidst the Whiz of Silver Bullets
Software development organizations must accept the inevitability of silver-bullet solution proposals and devise strategies to defend against them. By Alex E. Bell
25 Education
Paving the Way for Computational Thinking Drawing on methods from diverse disciplines—including computer science, education, sociology, and psychology—to improve computing education. By Mark Guzdial
28 Viewpoint
Envisioning the Future of Computing Research
Advances in computing have changed our lives—the Computing Community Consortium aims to help the research community continue that lineage.
By Ed Lazowska
31 Interview
Donald Knuth:
A Life’s Work Interrupted
In this second of a two-part interview by Edward Feigenbaum, we find Knuth, having completed three volumes of The Art of Computer Programming, drawn to creating a system to produce books digitally. Edited by Len Shustek
38 Scaling in Games and Virtual Worlds Online games and virtual worlds have familiar scaling requirements, but don’t be fooled: Everything you know is wrong.
By Jim Waldo
45 CTO Storage Roundtable Leaders in the storage world offer valuable advice for making more effective architecture and technology decisions.
By Mache Creeger, Moderator
52 The Rise and Fall of CORBA There’s a lot we can learn from CORBA’s mistakes.
By Michi Henning
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