SIGARCH Blog

I'm gonna throw some cold water on this and say this is not a new paradigm by any means.

https://www.sigarch.org/the-unreasonable-ineffectiveness-of-machine-learning-in-computer-systems-research/

However, it's certainly possible that the time for this idea has come. Google is probably in the best position to apply it.

I will say that after having worked at Google for over a decade, some of it on data center performance, there are plenty of inefficiencies that have nothing to do with algorithms or code, but have more to do with very coarse-grained resource allocation. In other words, they are "boring management problems" rather than sexy CS problems.

I should also add that you're expanding the claims made in the paper, which appears to be a common mistake. If you look at the related work and citations, you'll see that it's mostly about B-Trees, bloom filters, and indices. But I have seen people generalizing this to "a revolution in systems research", which I don't believe is justified.

Indexed data structures are important but a revolution in them is not going to cause a revolution in all of systems. Off the top of my head, the general area of "scheduling" (in time and space) is probably more important and more potentially impactful.

Here's some readings on why many don't want RMS in a leadership position.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21287006

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20994216

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26545420

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26535789

[5] https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2019/joint-statement-on-the-gnu-project/

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Some well-regarded papers on sexism in CS, which are still relevant as is evident from some comments in this thread.

[1] Why are There so Few Female Computer Scientists (Ellen Spertus, 1991)

https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7040

[2] How to Encourage Women in Linux (Val Henson, 2002)

https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/

[3] What Happens to Us Does Not Happen to Most of You (Kathryn S. McKinley, 2018)

https://www.sigarch.org/what-happens-to-us-does-not-happen-to-most-of-you/

[4] Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing (Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, 2001)

https://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-Press/dp/0262632691

[5] The Elephant in the Valley (by Michele Madansky and Trae Vassallo, 2015)

https://www.elephantinthevalley.com/

> I would say that, if you make such a claim, you should state why it is a mistake and what should be done instead.

Others have explained the problem with the von Neumann bottleneck,[1][2] and ways to overcome it or even redefine it.[3]

The industry is evolving towards programming paradigms less affected by that original computation model such as functional, functional-reactive, or agent-based programming(*), yet most of those are still converted down to Von-Neumann-style runtimes to be processed. Now that machine learning is increasingly being used to solve new problems, many computations may be done with dedicated non-VN hardware like tensor processors or analog computers (which are coming back with a vengeance).

(*) Listed in increasing order of real-world expressivity, although their computational expressivity in all them is mathematically equivalent to Brainfuck.

[1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1283920.1283933

[2] https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/von-Neumann-bottleneck

[3] https://www.sigarch.org/the-von-neumann-bottleneck-revisited/\*

Seems like RMS's Achilles' heel is harassment towards women, over the years, even after being made aware of it politely by others.

In that light, these are classic reads on the topic (copy pasting another comment):

[1] Why are There so Few Female Computer Scientists (Ellen Spertus, 1991)

https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7040

[2] How to Encourage Women in Linux (Val Henson, 2002)

https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/

[3] What Happens to Us Does Not Happen to Most of You (Kathryn S. McKinley, 2018)

https://www.sigarch.org/what-happens-to-us-does-not-happen-to-most-of-you/

[4] Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing (Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, 2001)

https://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-Press/dp/0262632691

[5] The Elephant in the Valley (by Michele Madansky and Trae Vassallo, 2015)

https://www.elephantinthevalley.com/

Also the news of RMS coming back seems to have been hidden from even FSF members.

https://twitter.com/fsf/status/1374399897558917128

The article mentions a student taking his own life. I remember this was huge news a couple years ago at ISCA '19 and something that really shook my decision to pursue academia.

After that event, SIGARCH launched an investigation. After a couple years, here were the results of that investigation.

https://www.sigarch.org/other-announcements/isca-19-joint-investigative-committee-announcement/

Worth noting is that the investigation actually initially found __no__ misconduct. Imagine that? A student kills himself, and you conclude it was the victim's fault, and not the environment that drove him.

It was only until this post [1] emerged that they relaunched the investigation.

[1] https://huixiangvoice.medium.com/evidence-put-doubts-on-the-ieee-acms-investigation-991a6d50802a

This is such a sad story. Nothing can bring back the dead, but we can try to prevent a repeat of the events, and ensure that their death was not in vain. It is heartening to see that ACM took the investigation seriously, and actually did discover and condemn serious academic fraud. However, while I can guess who is has been banned from submitting to ACM conferences for the next 15 years, apparently it is ACMs policy not to announce publicly! Just look at the report[0], it's completely anonymous. Am I mistaken? What is the justification for this? At a practical level, how am I as a co-chair of an ACM event supposed to enforce a ban if I don't know who is banned?

[0]: https://www.sigarch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/JIC-Public-Announcement-Feb-8-2021.pdf