Spelunking Communications of the ACM

 I'm feeling both a little random this morning, and very under-read as a general principle, so I'm going to start something.  We'll see how far it goes...

Communications of the ACM is the Association for Computing Machinery's flagship magazine. The modern instantiation is fabulous. Its history goes back to 1958 (some sources say 1957, but apparently v.1, no. 1 was Jan. 1958). It has evolved dramatically in its 63.5 years of existence, as the platform we take for granted has grown and matured.

Last night, I decided to go spelunking in the archives. This morning, I decided I'm going to try to review one paper from each year of CACM's existence. If I do one paper a week, this will take me a year and a quarter.  (But we know I'm easily distracted, so the challenge is, can I keep it up?)

I'll pick something, not at random, but not based on metrics such as whether a paper has been cited a lot or has a famous author, especially in the beginning.  It will just be something that catches my eye, and it likely will be something far from my own expertise, so there's a good chance my review will contain basic errors, so please feel free to comment and correct but not deride. After we get into the 1970s, we'll start to see more of the names I already know, and by the late 1980s, when I became an ACM member, very likely I'll pick some papers based simply on, "I remember reading that!" So, this is very much spelunking -- going into the dark, picking things up and examining them, tossing most of them back but finding a few gems.

So, starting this morning, I'm going to review a paper from 1958. Come along for the ride...