Chuck Thacker honored by ACM with the A.M. Turing Award

The A.M Turing Award is the closest thing computer science and information technology have to a Nobel Prize. To my great pleasure, this year the award is going to Chuck Thacker, who designed or strongly influenced many of the machines I used during a very productive part of my career (Maxc, Alto, Dolphin, Dorado, Firefly).

Although Chuck has called himself "a humble purveyor of cycles," the machines and software he designed have made substantial differences in how we compute today.

Bravo!

Added March 10, 2010: There's a very informative review of Chuck's career and impact on the Microsoft site.

Barbara Liskov wins A.M. Turing Award

ACM has just announced that Barbara Liskov is the winner of this year's A.M. Turing Award, widely considered to be "the Nobel Prize of computing."

I am especially pleased at this award. Barbara is not only a wonderful person, she is the one who introduced me to the concept of abstract data types, and her student, Steve Zilles, introduced me to algebraic specifications. These ideas had a major effect on my professional career.

News coverage.

Clark, Emerson, and Sifakis win Turing Award

The 2007 A.M. Turing Award, the most prestigious in computing, is going to Ed Clark, Allen Emerson, and Joseph Sifakis for their work in Model Checking, which has, over the past 25 years, revolutionized formal verification, especially of computer hardware designs. See the ACM announcement and press release.

Several other sources are carrying the news.

Updated 14:33 2/4/08 with ACM links.

PS For those confused about the "2007," ACM awards are dated the year when the nominations were due. Selections are announced in the following year, and presentations are made mid-year at the Awards Banquet, which this year will be on June 21 in San Francisco, CA.

New ACM / Infosys Foundation Award

ACM and Infosys have announced the creation of a new annual award that recognizes young scientists and system developers whose contemporary innovations are having a dramatic impact on the computing field. The prize will be $150,000.

If you know someone who deserves such recognition, please check the nomination procedures--and then follow them. Much of my advice on making the case for an ACM Fellow is also applicable to this new prize.

By the way, Intel and Google have jontly raised the prize associated with the Turing Award to $250,000, comensurate with its status as computing's highest professional honor.

Fran Allen's A.M. Turing Award address now online

ACM's A.M. Turing Award is the field's highest honor, often called "the Nobel Prize of computing." This year's winner was Frances E. Allen. A video of her Turing Award address is now available online.

HOPL III and a tipping point

Last Saturday and Sunday I attended ACM's third History of Programming Languages conference (part of the Federated Computing Research Conference running this week). HOPLs only come along every 15 years or so (1977, 1993, 2007).

It was a wonderful conference. It was great to meet again so many old friends and to meet and learn from so many language designers I knew of, but didn't know, and hear how their languages came into being and what had influenced them. There were clear differences in assumptions, but members of all the different camps were respectful of each other. (Perhaps the most potentially fraught session was the one consisting of Niklaus Wirth speaking on "Modula-2 and Oberon" and Bjarne Stroustrup on "Evolving a language in and for the real world: C++ 1991-2006.")

Let me mention just one other somewhat unusual aspect of the conference: When I registered, I was given the usual conference tote bag, with room for a laptop and a few 10-lb proceedings volumes. Then I was handed the conference papers--in the form of a thumb drive. It contained all the papers for HOPL III, but also, since that consumed only 11MB on a 256MB drive, they threw in as a bonus the final proceedings (including transcripts of the actual presentations and of the question and answer sessions) for both HOPL and HOPL II. Unfortunately, the drive does not contain Fran Allen's Turing Award address (which followed HOPL III), but it was carefully videotaped and I expect ACM to make it available somehow soon; there were a couple thousand people in the audience. (The HOPL II proceedings and HOPL III papers are all available in the ACM Digital Library.)

It seems to me that we have now passed a tipping point in scientific publication; it will become routine to distribute, not just conference papers, but also the previous proceedings (perhaps even all the referenced papers), to conference attendees. And pretty soon they'll stop handing out those tote bags...

Warsaw University team wins programming contest

A team from Warsaw University has won ACM's 31st annual International Collegiate Programming Contest. (See also this and this.)

New York, NY - March 15, 2007 - The results of the 2007 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC) indicate the continuing strength of global competition for the best computer programmers in the world. The top five winners were Warsaw University (Poland), Tsinghua University (China), St. Petersburg University of IT, Mechanics and Optics (Russia), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (U.S.), and Novosibirsk State University (Russia). This international competition, now in its 31st year, is hosted by ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery), a society of more than 83,000 computing educators, researchers, and professionals worldwide.

The international competition took place this week in Tokyo, Japan, with 88 teams competing in the final round. Earlier rounds of the competition featured more than 6,000 teams representing 1,765 universities from 82 countries.

The only U.S. university to finish in the top 10 was MIT, which placed 4th. Other top finishers from the U.S. were California Institute of Technology, at number 12, and the University of Texas at Dallas, which was tied for 14th place with 12 other schools.

I know one of the coaches of the winning team. Prof. Jan Madey is Vice-Rector of Warsaw University, but he has always found time to mentor exceptional students. His teams have done well in previous competitions (7th in 2006, 10th in 2004, World Champions in 2003, ...).

I met Jan in 1971 at the IFIP Congress in Ljubljana (then Yugoslavia, now Slovenia), and our paths have crossed many times since then, in Poland, the US, Canada, and assorted global sites. A wonderful person.

ACM names 41 new Fellows

An ACM press release announces the 41 recently-selected Fellows, who will be inducted at the annual Awards Banquet on June 9, in San Diego.

For hints on how to successfully nominate a Fellow, see my previous post.

Making the case for an ACM Fellow

ACM's highest membership grade is Fellow, intended to recognize and honor outstanding ACM members for their achievements in computer science and information technology and for their significant contributions to the mission of ACM. The goal is for Fellows to represent the top 1% of ACM's membership. (The other advanced membership grades are Distinguished and Senior.)

I served a five-year term on the ACM Fellows Committee, including chairing it one year. And as co-chair of the ACM Awards Committee, I have been a non-voting observer for the past five years. In those ten years, I have observed a number of commonalities that I think I can discuss without violating the confidentiality of the committee's discussions. [1]

First, I should say that this is a very dedicated and hardworking committee, who take their task very seriously. They are unpaid volunteers who each year read and consider some 500 nomination and endorsement letters. Although their collective expertise covers an impressive portion of the discipline, it is inevitable that no member of the committee will be at home in the areas of all of the candidates. But they each try to properly evaluate all of the cases presented, prior to a face-to-face meeting where they discuss each case.

Second, cases fall into three groups of roughly equal size:

• Cases generally agreed to demonstrate that the candidate meets the criteria.
• Cases generally agreed to not do so.
• Cases where there is either disagreement or uncertainty within the committee.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the committee's discussion is devoted to the latter group, and this is where the chance of mistakes is greatest.

Every year there are surely a few candidates who are rejected, not because they are not qualified, but because their nomination and endorsements fail to make the case as effectively as possible. There is no way for the committee to know which cases these are. When the discussion is inconclusive, the committee tends to make the conservative choice: A candidate who is not accepted, but should have been, can be nominated again, but a candidate who is accepted will not be re-evaluated. [2]

Here are some suggestions for nominators and endorsers about things they can do to strengthen (or avoid unnecessarily weakening) the cases for their candidates.

1. Nominate the candidate: Probably the greatest single reason for people who should be ACM Fellows not being accepted is that they have not been nominated. The committee is not empowered to select candidates on its own, it can only judge the nominations it receives. [3]
2. Follow the rules scrupulously: ACM Headquarters staff check all candidate packages strictly. If a nomination or endorsement arrives after the deadline, the committee doesn't see it. If a nominator or endorser isn't an ACM member as of the deadline, the committee doesn't see their input. If there are not five endorsements, the committee doesn't see the case at all. Etc.
3. Summarize the case in the nomination: In addition to supplying the required data, use the 7,500 characters to describe the candidate's accomplishments briefly, but specifically.
   • Avoid flowery adjectives, multiple superlatives, and overworked words such a "seminal" and "unique." Instead, indicate the importance of the work by describing its specific consequences (e.g., a new line of research taken up by others, a system or product in widespread use, an important conjecture resolved, a popular textbook) in terms understandable to a non-specialist.
   • The ideal candidate will have distinguished personal technical accomplishments, distinguished technical leadership, and distinguished ACM and community service. The more "concentrated" the accomplishments are into one or two areas, the more outstanding they need to be in those areas.
   • Although there is no formal age or experience requirement for Fellow, evidence is needed that the candidate's accomplishments are already--not just potentially--in the top 1% of ACM's membership.
   Cases with a weak nomination letter usually end in the bottom third and get little discussion.
4. This is not a tenure case: Performing acceptably for a sufficient number of years is not enough. Having hundreds of refereed publications is not enough. There is no "up or out"; many distinguished members will go their entire careers without becoming Fellows.
5. Choose the endorsers carefully: Since it is assumed that likely candidates will all have strong nominations, much of the committee's discussion focuses on the endorsements.
   • Each endorser should be able to personally attest to portions of the candidate's accomplishments.
   • An endorsement from an ACM Fellow carries just a little more weight, provided that the Fellow is actually familiar with the accomplishments discussed.
   • An endorsement by someone known to members of the committee can be more readily calibrated.
   • It is helpful to have endorsers from several different organizations, and endorsers who can address each of the areas of accomplishment outlined in the nomination.
   • With few exceptions, those who endorse more than two or three candidates will not strengthen their cases. Nor will cycles in the endorsement graph. [4]
   • It is acceptable to seek more than the minimum of 5 endorsements, to guard against the contingency of an endorsement arriving late. But 5 strong endorsements will make a more convincing case than those same 5 endorsements plus 3 weaker ones.
6. Write the endorsements as carefully as the nomination: An endorsement should focus on the accomplishments that you can personally attest to, and place them in context. Use this focus to include more specifics than are in the nomination, if you can. Merely repeating portions of the nomination letter will actually weaken the case.
   If you are endorsing multiple candidates, it is very important to rank them, and useful to compare them. (If you cannot do this, you probably don't know all of them well enough to endorse.)

Notes:
[1] These are my personal observations, and should not be interpreted as representing the views or policies of any other person or organization.
[2] Nominators of rejected candidates should seriously consider whether a stronger case could have been made; if they are convinced it could have been, it is acceptable to re-nominate the next year (but not effective to do so with the same letters). If a candidate is rejected two years in a row, a third consecutive nomination is not allowed. Wait a couple of years; if the candidate then has further accomplishments to strengthen the case, consider re-nominating.
[3] And, as a matter of policy, committee members recuse themselves from nominating or endorsing candidates, as do the Awards Committee co-chairs.
[4] There are over 500 ACM Fellows; why do we always get endorsements from the same 50?

Privacy Policy Recommendations

USACM (the US public policy committee of the ACM) has released a new set of recommendations on privacy.

Current computing technologies enable the collection, exchange, analysis, and use of personal information on a scale unprecedented in the history of civilization. These technologies, which are widely used by many types of organizations, allow for massive storage, aggregation, analysis, and dissemination of data. Advanced capabilities for surveillance and data matching/mining are being applied to everything from product marketing to national security.

Despite the intended benefits of using these technologies, there are also significant concerns about their potential for negative impact on personal privacy. Well-publicized instances of personal data exposures and misuse have demonstrated some of the challenges in the adequate protection of privacy. Personal data – including copies of video, audio, and other surveillance – needs to be collected, stored, and managed appropriately throughout every stage of its use by all involved parties. Protecting privacy, however, requires more than simply ensuring effective information security...

Striking a balance between individual privacy rights and valid government and commercial needs is a complex task for technologists and policy makers, but one of vital importance. For this reason, USACM has developed the following recommendations on this important issue.

RECOMMENDATIONS

MINIMIZATION ...

CONSENT ...

OPENNESS ...

ACCESS ...

ACCURACY ...

SECURITY ...

ACCOUNTABILITY ...

USACM does not accept the view that individual privacy must typically be sacrificed to achieve effective implementation of systems, nor do we accept that cost reduction is always a sufficient reason to reduce privacy protections.

I believe that the report is worthwhile reading in full, both by citizens and by policy makers. But I may be biased, since I helped in its drafting.

Business Week on the computer brain drain

Business Week has published an article on the latest defeat of US programming teams at the annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

America's dismal showing in a contest of college programmers highlights how China, India, and Eastern Europe are closing the tech talent gap

Ben Mickle, Matt Edwards, and Kshipra Bhawalkar looked as though they had just emerged from a minor auto wreck. The members of Duke University's computer programming team had solved only one problem in the world finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in San Antonio on Apr. 12. The winning team, from Saratov State University in Russia, solved six puzzles over the course of the grueling five-hour contest. Afterward, Duke coach Owen Astrachan tried to cheer up his team by pointing out that they were among ``the best of the best'' student programmers in the world. Edwards, 20, still distraught, couldn't resist a self-deprecating dig: ``We're the worst of the best of the best.''

Duke wasn't the only U.S. school to be skunked at the prestigious computing contest. Of the home teams, only Massachusetts Institute of Technology ranked among the 12 highest finishers. Most top spots were seized by teams from Eastern Europe and Asia. Until the late 1990s, U.S. teams dominated these contests. But the tide has turned. Last year not one was in the top dozen.

The poor showings should serve as a wake-up call for government, industry, and educators. The output of American computer science programs is plummeting, even while that of Eastern European and Asian schools is rising. China and India, the new global tech powerhouses, are fueled by 900,000 engineering graduates of all types each year, more than triple the number of U.S. grads. Computer science is a key subset of engineering. ``If our talent base weakens, our lead in technology, business, and economics will fade faster than any of us can imagine,'' warns Richard Florida, a professor at George Mason University and author of The Flight of the Creative Class.

Software programmers are the seed corn of the Information Economy, yet America isn't producing enough. The Labor Dept. forecasts that ``computer/math scientist'' jobs, which include programming, will increase by 40%, from 2.5 million in 2002 to 3.5 million in 2012. Colleges aren't keeping up with demand. A 2005 survey of freshmen showed that just 1.1% planned to major in computer science, down from 3.7% in 2000...

Yet computer science advocates say that unless the government enacts sweeping legislation aimed at improving the nation's technology competitiveness -- legislation now bogged down in Congress -- there's a limit to what can be done. ``The attitude in the House is very toxic, and I don't see much chance of them coming together,'' says Deborah L. Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness.

While Congress was fiddling, the kids from Saratov State were marching toward victory in San Antonio. The 83 teams sat at tables that were gradually festooned with color-coded balloons signaling which group had solved which problems. After an announcer ticked off the last 10 seconds in the contest, Saratov's players, coaches, and hangers-on shouted with joy and gave each other back-pounding bear hugs. ``I feel euphoric,'' said team member Ivan Romanov. Victory was especially sweet, he added, because it came on the anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's 1961 voyage into space.

Gagarin's rocket ride shocked Americans out of their postwar complacency, sparking a national quest for tech superiority that led to such breakthroughs as the moon landing and the microchip. A trouncing in a programming contest doesn't inspire the same kind of response today. Truthfully, Americans just don't feel threatened enough to exert the effort. But if we wait too long, we might find ourselves playing catch-up again.

Thanks to Cameron Wilson for the pointer. See also the USACM blog.

Digital Rights Management Principles

USACM, the United States Public Policy Committee of ACM, has published a high-level "Policy Recommendations on Digital Rights Management" drafted by a subcommittee chaired by Ed Felten, of which I was a member.

The marketplace should determine the success or failure of DRM technologies but, increasingly, content distributors are turning to legislatures or the courts to erect new legal mandates to replace long-standing copyright regimes. DRM systems should be mechanisms for reinforcing existing legal constraints on behavior, not mechanisms for creating new legal constraints. Striking a balance among consumers’ rights, public interest, and protection of valid copyright interests is no simple task for technologists or policymakers.

Principles covering competition, balance of rights, consumer protection, privacy and consent, research and public discourse, and targeted policies are included. The goal was not to address specific policies or legislation, but to provide a reasoned set of principles that could be applied as issues arose. More on this at the USACM Policy Blog.

Voter Registration Database Guidelines:Accuracy, Privacy, Usability, Security, and Reliability

The US Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery has just released a report with nearly 100 high-level guidelines designed to help states comply with Federal laws that require new computerized statewide electronic databases.

Here's a summary of its Executive Summary

This study focuses on five areas that election officials should address when creating statewide voter registration databases (VRDs): accuracy, privacy, usability, security, and reliability. Each chapter contains detailed discussions and recommendations. The following are some of the overarching goals for VRDs and selected recommendations for achieving them.

1. The policies and practices of entire voting registration systems, including those that govern VRDs, should be transparent both internally and externally...

2. Accountability should be apparent throughout each VRD...

3. Audit trails should be employed throughout the VRD...

4. Privacy values should be a fundamental part of the VRD, not an afterthought...

5. Registration systems should have strong notification policies...

6. Election officials should rigorously test the usability, security and reliability of VRDs while they are being designed and while they are in use...

7. Election officials should develop strategies for coping with potential Election Day failures of electronic registration databases...

8. Election officials should develop special procedures and protections to handle large-scale merges with and purges of the VRD...

ACM: 2004 Award Winners and Fellows

ACM has announced its 2004 Award Winners and Fellows.

"As part of ACM's ongoing effort to recognize technical excellence and outstanding service to the computing field, the ACM Award Subcommittees have deliberated and made their selections, and ACM is pleased to announce the winners of its 2004 awards. These award winners and Fellows represent a diverse group of leaders who have contributed significantly to the IT community. Some have led the way for others to follow with breakthrough achievements that have changed the world; others are just starting out and are among the best and the brightest of their generation. ACM is privileged to acknowledge all this year's winners for their stellar accomplishments."

A.M. Turing Award

Vinton G. Cerf, Senior Vice President for Technology Strategy, MCI
Robert E. Kahn, CEO, Corporation for National Research Initiatives

'For pioneering work on internetworking, including the design and implementation of the Internet's basic communications protocols, TCP/IP, and for inspired leadership in networking.'

Grace Murray Hopper Award

Jennifer Rexford, Princeton University

'For models, algorithms, and deployed systems that assure stable and efficient Internet routing without global coordination.' "

And many more...

Cerf and Kahn win Turing Award for TCP/IP

A lengthy story in the New York Times gives details and a pretty accurate history of TCP/IP and its impact.

"Late in the summer of 1973, two young scientists in the nascent field of computer networks hunkered down in a conference room of the Cabana Hyatt Hotel in Palo Alto, Calif., a clean but bland stopping place for salesmen and the parents of students at nearby Stanford University. Their goal was to thrash out a way to make different, isolated computer networks talk to each other."

"They wrote, they sketched, they argued, all the while passing a yellow legal pad back and forth to capture ideas as they crystallized. When they emerged two days later, they knew they had the makings of a solid technical paper. What they did not know was that they had created the essential underpinnings of today's vast and sprawling Internet."

"For the work that began on that yellow pad, the Association for Computing Machinery plans to announce Wednesday that Vinton G. Cerf and Robert E. Kahn will receive the 2004 A. M. Turing Award, widely considered to be the computing field's equivalent of the Nobel Prize."

Although the story suggests a controversy over "who invented the Internet," it's pretty clear who invented TCP/IP and that this contribution was seminal.

Here is ACM's Turing Award website, which also links to their press release.