I had the good fortune to attend a free DC ACM-sponsored lecture by Tony Hoare last week. Hoare is the inventor of quicksort as well as the man behind two of my favorite Computing-related quotes:
Premature optimization is the root of all evil. (via Knuth)
There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is to make it so simple there are obviously no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
He gave a fairly dry talk on the importance of program correctness and how CS-the-science hopes to eventually figure out proof methods and tools that will some day help CS-the-discipline. But, he notes, we’re still a long way off.
I’m still not a member, but good things are coming out of the local ACM chapter. This is the same series that brought Brian Kernighan earlier in the year. Next month there is a black tie affair with Bjarne Stroustrup as the keynote.