🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <FAIGIN.92Aug5124820@soldan.aero.org> faigin@aero.org (Daniel P. Faigin) writes:
> On 5 Aug 92 17:29:51 GMT, cjackso@nv6 (Clay Jackson) said:
> > 3)  There's less money being spent by corporations on things like 
> >     professional development and participation.
> 
> I don't expect my company to fund these things.

Why not?  Is your company not interested in your personal development,
education, and training?

> > 4)  Computer Science enrollments are down and are CONTINUING to
> >     decline.
> 
> Somehow, we must change this trend.

This is not necessarily bad all by it self.

> > 1)  A full time art director was hired - and the quality/readability of
> > CACM has gone down.
> 
> I don't know. Constrast CACM with what it was 10 years ago (the black and blue
> covers). I think the readability has gone up markedly. They've dropped some
> (IMHO) useful sections, like Programming Pearls and the Case Studys, but on
> the whole the papers selected are much more useful than issues of old. There
> are occasional layout problems, but I don't read CACM for the layout, I read
> it for the articles.
>[....]
> I truly think the "art" type changes to ACM are cosmetic. Is there a problem
> with the articles.

What-so-ever is wrong with plain covers?  If you read it for the
information content, then surely the "artistic" work on the covers is
a complete an total waste of effort!

As the newsletter editor for another non-profit organization, I'm
always astounded by the number of requests for "glossy" production.  I
don't want to sell anything in the same context as the content -- only
to convey the information that is the content!  The marketing for the
publication, IMHO, should be done "out-of-band", particularly for
newsletters and journals.

Perhaps if the editors of CACM spent less time worrying about the
artistic merit and cosmetic aspects of "our" publication, we'd get more
attention paid to the true content that I'm sure most of us are after.

Of course the pragmatic aspects of layout and typesetting must be
treated with care as without the information content may be obscured.
-- 
						Greg A. Woods

woods@robohack.UUCP woods@Elegant.COM  VE3TCP	UniForum Canada & ECI
+1 416 443-1734 [home] +1 416 595-5425 [work]	Toronto, Ontario; CANADA