Interactions - March/April 2010

A dynamic industry that
is growing overall can
experience profound shifts
that impact research
and application. Digital
technology extends its
influence, technology-
focused faculty and student
populations expand, the
demand for practitioners
grows, and life seems good.

March + April 2010

In the 1980s, the mainframe companies and then the minicomputer companies foundered. NCC had a couple financially disastrous years, with large exhibit halls rented and not filled. AFIPS lost its large cash reserve, including money from the sale of its headquarters, and disbanded.

ACM and IEEE sought funds to replace their share of AFIPS revenues. Within ACM, focus shifted to Special Interest Groups and conferences, such as SIGGRAPH and CHI, which became a major source of revenue. This has been supplemented in the past decade by the Digital Library, which draws on conference proceedings for content.

What can we learn from this? A dynamic industry that is growing overall can experience profound shifts that impact research and application. Digital technology extends its influence, technology-focused faculty and student populations expand, the demand for practitioners grows, and life seems good. But AFIPS did not see clouds on the horizon. Could we experience equally rapid discontinuities?

Perhaps. The field has expanded tremendously, but ACM SIG membership has declined over 50 percent since 1990. Major conferences peaked in attendance years ago. In the May 2009 issue of Communications of the ACM, Ken Birman and Fred B. Schneider describe a crisis in computer science in terms of a “death spiral” attributed to systemic forces that tend to favor technically proficient but sterile research. They suggest that we command the ocean to roll back by returning to a journal orientation, but in our field the waves keep coming, each larger than the last.

We may avoid the AFIPS calamity—for one thing, our conferences are not tied to expensive commercial exhibitions—but history tells us that change can be swift. It is sobering that when AFIPS collapsed, 40 years of research literature was suddenly inaccessible, and no one seemed to notice. We quickly moved on.

Young researchers and practitioners should expect and prepare for dramatic transformations in the field and in their careers.

vacuum tubes—with software somewhat longer-lived, and process observations the most enduring. Mac Williams’s amusing description of optimistic self-assessments prompts reflection. The 1951 conference systematically brought in builders and users, so builders could learn from users and each other. Learning is slower when we assess our own handiwork. We emphasize the positive. Perhaps researchers should assess one another’s systems, or conferences should publish more negative outcomes. In my experience, frank assessments of unsuccessful system building get curt “you should have known better” rejections—and do not enhance authors’ chances for renewed funding, either.

Second, consider the sudden demise of AFIPS and its conferences. The conferences juxtaposed research papers with expensive commercial exhibitions that could be very profitable. The NCC focused on mainframe computer exhibitors. When minicomputers became a big business—Digital Equipment Corporation became the world’s second-largest computer company—AFIPS organized office automation exhibitions and research conferences. However, AFIPS discouraged participation by PC and PC-software vendors. COMDEX advertised itself as “the NCC for the PC industry” and captured the exhibitors, while smaller ACM conferences ( including CHI) captured much of the relevant research.