DOI: 10.1145/1536616.1536617
Steve Bourne and Bryan Cantrill
A year ago, this publication was stripped
to the studs and rebuilt, with everything
from the content to the cover art revisited,
rethought, and revitalized. Among the
Communications
and the Practitioner
many additions has been a new sec-
tion, “Practice.” While readers may
have not recognized this section per se,
they have likely noticed its practitioner-
oriented content, with articles on ev-
erything from the innards of GPUs and
the mechanics of hard-drive failure to
debugging AJAX and avoiding the con-
tagious virulence of XML fever—and
much in between.
The story behind the Practice sec-
tion merits some explanation, for it
traces the history of the practitioner
within ACM. There was a time in the
not-too-distant past when practitio-
ners felt largely indifferent about ACM:
while practitioners grappled with
thorny problems posing non-negotia-
ble obstacles to shipping a product or
deploying a system, ACM (and, dare
we say, its flagship publication) could
seem to be comfortably insulated in
dreamy abstraction. Not that the prac-
titioner was better served by anyone
else: much content for the professional
software engineer seemed to be either
explicitly “for dummies” or shameless-
ly capitalizing on the latest fad—and
often both.
Several at ACM saw these two
problems—ACM’s lack of focus on
the practitioner and the opportunity
posed by the paucity of high-caliber
practitioner content—and set out to
address them with a new magazine.
The result of this effort, ACM Queue,
launched in March 2003 and was tar-
geted toward the practitioner, but
with an eye toward tomorrow’s prob-
lems instead of today’s solutions. In
its first issue, Queue introduced itself
as “a tonic for the hype weary, with a
commitment to methodically dissect
upcoming challenges while posing the
same hard questions software devel-
opers ask themselves.” Over the years,
Queue stayed true to this vision by hav-
ing editorial content conceived of and
written by software engineers them-
selves. This afforded the magazine a
problem focus, but one that held fast
to the reality of production systems.
Striking this delicate balance required
constant vigilance, but it made Queue
With everything about
Communications
being reconsidered,
the time was perfect
to rethink not just
the relationship
between Queue and
Communications,
but also the role
of the practitioner
within Acm itself.
a must-read for leading practitioners.
The growing success of Queue co-
incided with another change at ACM:
the remaking of Communications.
There had long been a desire among
ACM’s leadership to refresh the ven-
erable publication, and with every-
thing about Communications being
reconsidered, the time was perfect to
rethink not just the relationship be-
tween Queue and Communications,
but also the role of the practitioner
within ACM itself. From this delib-
eration, the new Practice section was
born: Queue retained its identity and
its Web site, but also became an inte-
gral part of the new Communications,
with Queue leading the development
of articles in the Practice section as
well as of columns such as Kode Vi-
cious. Bringing Queue content to Com-
munications has reunited the prac-
titioner and the researcher under a
single masthead, reinvigorating both
communities. Indeed, laying the best
work of the practitioner and research-
er communities side-by-side has been
a refreshing reminder of what brings
us together: we of ACM are united by
our common passion for making com-
puters do nifty and useful things.
So to longtime ACM members and
Communications readers, we hope you
have found the new Practice section to
be thought-provoking. And to practitio-
ners (especially, those who may be new
ACM members!), we hope you will not
restrict yourselves to the Practice sec-
tion, but will also take the time to read
the latest work from the larger ACM
community. To everyone, welcome to
the new Communications and the new
broader ACM!
Steve Bourne is Chief technology officer, eldorado
Ventures, editor-in-chief of ACM Queue, chair of aCM’s
Professions board, and chair of Communications’ Practice
board.
Bryan Cantrill is a Distinguished engineer at sun
Microsystems, member of ACM Queue editorial board, and
member of aCM’s Professions board.
© 2009 aCM 0001-0782/09/0800 $10.00