For the ones who are members, is it worth it? I always had in mind that the ACM and IEEE were for "professionals, for real engineers/computer scientists who are pushing the industry forward". I'm just a developer who sometimes care about good code, but more often than not pushes bugs to production.
ACM and IEEE are organizations run by academics for academics. I've belonged to both. At this point, with all the resources available on the net, there's little point in a practicing engineer or computer scientist to belong to either.
Can anyone speak to if ACM and/or IEEE memberships are worth it for a professional developer? I loved reading stuff like the History of Programming Languages papers back when I had student access in college.
The ACM is an academic association. The IEEE should be more important professionally than it is; one problem with the IEEE is that you have to have a related bachelors degree to join.
Developers should start a new organization that represents the interests of employees of the technology industry.
I am an IEEE member. I am not sure why anymore, mostly I think it is important to support the industry.
I am also an ACM member and I find that very valuable. The community is good, the policy engagement is good, the publications are excellent, and their employer subsidy program is excellent. I work at Circonus and we pay for everyone's ACM membership as an employee benefit (including the digital library) and it makes each and every one a more valuable employee -- such an easy investment to justify.
I am also highly active with the ACM. I am currently an ACM Member at Large, so if anyone would like to see any changes within the ACM (and you are a member) I'm here to represent you practitioners! The ACM Turing award (amongst all the other distinguished awards) and very important to rewarding innovation and progress in computing. The ACM is aces.
The ACM has certainly tried to keep software development a profession, but yes the industry mostly ignores the ACM and still revels in a cult of amateur programming.
First, you have to be a member of both, as the literature is divided between them.
Second, library access isn't included in the membership. It's an extra.
Third, the IEEE in particular partition the hell out of their database and you often wind up paying anyhow ("oh sorry, that's not in the IEEE-CS library, now f-you-pay-me").
My impression of IEEE and ACM are that they're more oriented toward academia (e.g., publishing peer-reviewed journals) and less oriented toward the average working programmer. We might do better with an organization that's primarily focused on improving working conditions rather than propagating technical information. I think there's room for both kinds of organizations.
I was an IEEE member as a student for a while, partially because it gave me significant discounts to certain conferences. Now that I have to pay the professional membership fees, it doesn't feel worth it to me. I'm hanging onto my ACM membership however.
Indeed. There were some serious issues in the late '80s and on, like removing the tax safe harbor for consultant programmers, and the ACM was nowhere to be found on these issues, which is one of the things that prompted me to drop my membership. Maybe if I was an academic I would have viewed it differently, but....
I'm an IEEE Computer Society member, not a full member. It's a line on my resume but has never provided a lot of value for me or my career.
I was once also a member of the ACM, but since I worked in the embedded computing field (which is dominated by EEs) it wasn't as useful on a resume as the IEEE. When I had to cut back spending when kids came along I dropped it in favor of IEEE.
As a Software Engineer I constantly research new publications, various CS books and occasionally visit conferences. Recently I started to notice some people in common circles talking about ACM. And I started to wonder if it is something that I might be interested in. Their website is rather vague, so here I am. What is your personal experience with ACM or IEEE, have you joined any of them, or maybe visited worked with a local chapter?
They could, as long as the work was overseen by a senior developer with the appropriate paperwork.
However, since when was the IEEE an outlet for computer science? Where does the ACM stand on this?
I did stay a member of the IEEE Computer Society because my feeling is that the IEEE is more responsive to the working engineer.
For instance I like the position of the IEEE on H-1B visas because it is nuanced, and it represents the position of working engineers (U.S. born or not) and not that of their employers. The ACM has been "all-in" on "H-1B is great!"
Unfortunately the ACM shows little concern for the practitioner, even though it was founded to be a bridge between computer science academia and industry. The problem that is carped about in CACM the most over time is the roller-coaster enrollment of CS undergraduate programs.
Part of that roller-coastering is that many people enter the field because they think it is in demand, but after a few years their careers hit a kind of "glass ceiling". If the ACM was more attentive to the problems people have after they graduate, they might solve their own problems, but that would involve breaking with the large employers, which they won't do.
I was basically coerced into joining, because if you pay $X to join, registration for IEEE conferences goes down by a much, much greater number.
Presumably, they have it set up this way because they ultimately make more money by selling your information to marketers (which they do).
So I would say that if the IEEE has a Code of Conduct, it completely lacks all legitimacy.
I hope some important IEEE people take note of this situation and correct it. Otherwise, I hope a more ethical organiziation arises that relegates IEEE to the dustbin.
For at least the past 5 years, I've been questioning the value of IEEE regular membership very hard. Marketing internally spams the Gmail inboxes paid for by dues; Spectrum is nothing more than a front for advertisements while members don't even have ad-free web access to its content; Xplore is a minimum $20/mo limited to an insulting 3 papers; standards are outrageously overpriced even with supposed "member discount". The only thing that has kept me around this long is an apparent misguided belief that the IEEE is the flagship organization catering to the interests of professional EEs, and I'm an EE, therefore I should retain membership. This will be my 10th year of membership...mostly on the campaign promises of Jose Moura[1] of CMU--who I voted for back in 2017 and is now President. I'm really hoping things do indeed change.
I also hold lifetime membership with the ACM. Cost ~$4,000 out of pocket, but that buys indefinite access to digital library content. Sure, I could have Sci-Hub'd their papers, but I also recognize that the organization needs to be funded somehow, and their asking price for perceived value was within my budget. IEEE doesn't even have such an option, nor does its Computer Society.
This criticism of SDOs[2] is definitely relevant to the meta of those professional organizations who merely claim to support the interests of its members.
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