Communications of the ACM articles from May 1997

Communications of the ACM archives from May 1997

Does the Internet support student inquiry? Don't ask.
May 1, 1997... National organizations, such as the National Research Council and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, are unified in their call for a new pedagogy, a Deweyian educational framework, where students engage in serious...

The never-ending struggle for balance. (intellectual property law)
May 1, 1997... In the past several years I've written a number of columns emphasizing the desirability of balance in intellectual property law. Some of these columns have been about "look and feel" law-suits, some about fair uses of copyrighted works, and...

Lessons from a cautionary tale. (computer technology)
May 1, 1997... The mere fact that something can be done does not mean it should be done. This truism is generally acknowledged but just as generally ignored in decisions about the deployment of computer technology. * The balance between action and restraint,...

The date crisis. (magazine on Year 2000 transition in computers)
May 1, 1997... With the millennium fast approaching, the year-2000 (Y2K) date crisis is on everyone's mind. The following are selected letters "Practical Programmer" columnist Robert Glass inspired with his January 1997 column, "The Next Date Crisis and the...

ACM97: an event to remember? (the Assn for Computing's conference)(includes related article on ACM97 attendees)
May 1, 1997... For five days last March, the hub of silicon valley was awash in colorful images and stories of life in the year 2047. The place was San Jose, the time was March 1-5, and the attraction ACM97--a remarkable event that entwined futuristic...

Dynamic object technology. (software technology)(Cover Story)
May 1, 1997... There is a growing need for software technology to support applications requiring rapid updating and upgrading of functionality and performance. Such applications span a range from those that require frequent bug-fix updates, through...

Integrating legacy systems with modern corporate applications.
May 1, 1997... Implementing the new without compromising the old. The rate of introduction of new technologies in the information technology realm has grown enough to become a problem in itself. IS departments are struggling to maintain personnel capable...

Countdown to success: dynamic objects, GBB and RADARSTAT-1. (includes related article on scheduling effort)
May 1, 1997... The most successful applications are never completed--they evolve with the enterprises they serve. Dynamic object technology enables applications to be modified and enhanced during development and runtime without access to source code. The...

Dynamic objects for engineering automation.
May 1, 1997... If asked what formal language they use to communicate about mechanical design, most engineers will respond with a variety of answers. Some will proclaim it is descriptive geometry, used to convey a visual description of the designed part. Others...

Patching onto the Web: Common Lisp Hypermedia for the Intranet.
May 1, 1997... In this article we describe how we successfully applied dynamic object technology, including Common Lisp [4] and Common Lisp Hypermedia Server (CL-HTTP), to rapidly put a large factory database onto the Web. We used CL-HTTP [3] to convert a...

Visual information retrieval.
May 1, 1997... Users can now elicit, store, and retrieve the "imagery-based" information content--metadata and visual features--in visual media as easily as they query text documents. In 1951, researcher and businessman Calvin Moores coined the term...

Why interaction is more powerful than algorithms.
May 1, 1997... The paradigm shift from algorithms to interaction captures the technology shift from mainframes to workstations and networks, from number-crunching to embedded systems and graphical user interfaces, and from procedure-oriented to object-based and...

Internet security: fire walls and beyond.
May 1, 1997... The paradigm shift from algorithms interaction captures the technology shift from mainframes to workstations and networks, from number-crunching to embedded systems and graphical user interfaces, and from procedure-oriented to object-based and...

Data quality in context.
May 1, 1997... A new study reveals businesses are defining data quality with the consumer in mind. Data-quality (DQ) problems are increasingly evident, particularly in organizational databases. Indeed, 50% to 80% of computerized criminal records in the...

Seven work plans for year-2000 upgrade projects.
May 1, 1997... The Millenium Horse is a virus hacker's best dream (and our worst nightmare). It is absolutely everywhere. It is "polymorphic," having a nearly infinite variety of structures and behaviors, and in a nanosecond it can destroy your data, your...

The year 2000. (Year 2000 computer transition)
May 1, 1997... If you are trying to keep track of the calendar over the current 200 years or so, 2000 is a very good year indeed. The rules of the Gregorian calendar under which we operate are: * Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year (i.e., we insert...

Solving the date crisis. (Year 2000 transition porblem)
May 1, 1997... This article proposes a solution to the Y2K date crisis that does not require any existing files or databases to be modified in any way. Dates are stored in a 6-digit YYMMDD format. The problem is compounded when we note that files of...