the worth of SIGPLAN

[andrew at orca.UUCP]

	From Chuck Von Rospach:

	99% of the articles they publish are rather worthless at best
	...  You must remember that SIGPLAN (and most if not all of the
	SIG publications) is NOT a refereed publication, and it will
	usually publish anything that is sent in, no matter how trivial
	the material ... I will agree  that  there  are  occasional
	gems,  but  spending  $22 a year and wading through all of the
	dreck simply wasn't worth it anymore, even if I can do it on
	company  time  and  with  a company membership...

That's quite a criticism coming from a person who reads net news: 99%
of news articles are worthless at best, NOT refereed, any trivia that's
sent in is published; occasional gems, but spending money (large phone
bills) and wading through the dreck isn't worth it, even on company
time ...

SIG publications are not refereed, but they are edited.  I have seen at
least one rejected manuscript (from SIGOPS) .. the author's offense was
to take twenty pages to make a not very worthwhile point where two
pages would have sufficed.

  -- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!teklabs!tekecs!andrew)  [UUCP]
                       (andrew.tektronix at rand-relay)   [ARPA]