Research Directions In Computer Science

Research Directions in Computer Science celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of MIT's Project MAC. It covers the full range of ongoing computer science research at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, both of which grew out of the original Project MAC. Leading researchers from the faculties and staffs of the laboratories highlight current research and future activities in multiprocessors and parallel computer architectures, in languages and systems for distributed computing, in intelligent systems (AI) and robotics, in complexity and learning theory, in software methodology, in programming language theory, in software for engineering research and education, and in the relation between computers and economic productivity. ContributorsAbelson, Arvind, Rodney Brooks, David Clark, Fernando Corbato, William Daily, Michael Dertouzos, John Guttag, Berthold K. P. Horn, Barbara Liskov, Albert Meyer, Nicholas Negroponte, Marc Raibert, Ronald Rivest, Michael Sipser, Gerald Sussman, Peter Szolovits, and John Updike

First published in 1996, this collection of essays by distinguished computer scientists celebrates the achievements of research and speculates about the unsolved problems in computer science that require future investigation. Since the subject stretches from technology in the field, through engineering design to foundations in mathematics, there is a wide variety of concerns and approaches among the authors. The book's purpose is to show that long-term research in computer science is crucial and that it must not be driven solely by commercial considerations. The authors do not shirk the difficult aspects of their topics, but try to expose them in the simplest terms possible without diluting them, in order that the reader can understand the issues involved. Thus the book also represents a broad overview of much of the state of knowledge and future expectations of computer science, illustrating that it is much more than a technology and it is a fully fledged and growing intellectual discipline with its own engineering principles and its own scientific concepts and models. It will be stimulating reading because it represents the views of prominent authorities who have had a significant impact on the direction of innovation, research and development in computer science.

The primary purpose of this book is to provide an understandable but nontrivial description by active research workers of concepts and research issues in principal subareas of software technology. It should be useful to both the specialist and the technical layman as a source of factual information about research issues and can serve as a starting point for discussions of what to do next. We hope it will make practitioners aware of the practical contributions of research, make researchers aware of the needs of technology, and serve to stimulate greater collaboration between practitioners and research workers. An even more ambitious objective is to encourage dialogue among research workers in different areas (such as computer architecture, programming languages and data base management) so that the basis for an integrated approach to computer systems can be established. Last but not least, this study may be useful to funding agencies and other policy-making bodies in making policy decisions concerning future support of research.

Once a radical notion, object-oriented programming is one of today's most active research areas. It is especially well suited to the design of very large software projects involving many programmers all working on the same project. The original contributions in this book will provide researchers and students in programming languages, databases, and programming semantics with the most complete survey of the field available. Broad in scope and deep in its examination of substantive issues, the book focuses on the major topics of object-oriented languages, models of computation, mathematical models, object-oriented databases, and object-oriented environments. The object-oriented languages include Beta, the Scandinavian successor to Simula (a chapter by Bent Kristensen, whose group has had the longest experience with object-oriented programming, reveals how that experience has shaped the group's vision today); CommonObjects, a Lisp-based language with abstraction; Actors, a low-level language for concurrent modularity; and Vulcan, a Prolog-based concurrent object-oriented language. New computational models of inheritance, composite objects, block-structure layered systems, and classification are covered, and theoretical papers on functional object-oriented languages and object-oriented specification are included in the section on mathematical models. The three chapters on object-oriented databases (including David Maier's "Development and Implementation of an Object-Oriented Database Management System," which spans the programming and database worlds by integrating procedural and representational capability and the requirements of multi-user persistent storage) and the two chapters on object-oriented environments provide a representative sample of good research in these two important areas. Bruce Shriver is a researcher at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Peter Wegner is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Brown University. Research Directions in Object-Oriented Programmingis included in the Computer Systems series, edited by Herb Schwetman.

A complete update to a classic, respected resource Invaluable reference, supplying a comprehensive overview on how to undertake and present research

Computers are increasingly the enabling devices of the information revolution, and computing is becoming ubiquitous in every corner of society, from manufacturing to telecommunications to pharmaceuticals to entertainment. Even more importantly, the face of computing is changing rapidly, as even traditional rivals such as IBM and Apple Computer begin to cooperate and new modes of computing are developed. Computing the Future presents a timely assessment of academic computer science and engineering (CS&E), examining what should be done to ensure continuing progress in making discoveries that will carry computing into the twenty-first century. Most importantly, it advocates a broader research and educational agenda that builds on the field's impressive accomplishments. The volume outlines a framework of priorities for CS&E, along with detailed recommendations for education, funding, and leadership. A core research agenda is outlined for these areas: processors and multiple-processor systems, data communications and networking, software engineering, information storage and retrieval, reliability, and user interfaces. This highly readable volume examines: Computer science and engineering as a discipline-how computer scientists and engineers are pushing back the frontiers of their field. How CS&E must change to meet the challenges of the future. The influence of strategic investment by federal agencies in CS&E research. Recent structural changes that affect the interaction of academic CS&E and the business environment. Specific examples of interdisciplinary and applications research in four areas: earth sciences and the environment, computational biology, commercial computing, and the long-term goal of a national electronic library. The volume provides a detailed look at undergraduate CS&E education, highlighting the limitations of four-year programs, and discusses the emerging importance of a master's degree in CS&E and the prospects for broadening the scope of the Ph.D. It also includes a brief look at continuing education.