Association for Computing Machinery
ACM, singkatan dari Association for Computing Machinery (Asosiasi untuk Permesinan Komputer), adalah sebuah serikat ilmiah dan pendidikan komputer pertama di dunia yang didirikan pada tahun 1947. Anggota ACM sekitar 78.000 terdiri dari para profesional dan para pelajar yang tertarik akan komputer. Dia bermarkas besari di Kota New York.
ACM diatur menjadi 170 bagian("chapter") lokal dan 34 grup minat khusus (special interest group, SIG), di mana mereka melakukan kebanyakan kegiatan mereka.
Banyak dari SIG, seperti SIGGRAPH, SIGPLAN dan SIGCOMM, mensponsori konferensi teratur yang menjadi terkenal sebagai acara utama untuk memperkenalkan inovasi baru dalam bidang tertentu. SIG juga menerbitkan sejumlah jurnal khusus, majalan, dan surat berita.
ACM juga mensponsori acara yang berhubungan dengan ilmu komputer seperti
ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) yang mendunia, dan telah mensponsori beberapa acara lainnya, seperti pertandingan catur antara Garry Kasparov dan komputer IBM Deep Blue.
"Journal of the ACM", and general magazines for computer professionals, "Communications of the ACM" and "Queue". Many of the great debates in the history of computing have taken place in the pages of "Communications." Examples include the famous "GOTO considered harmful" letter, the issue of what to call the then-fledgling field of computer science, and the issue of changing ACM's name (since the "machinery" in question is no longer the size of a house and is now measured in micrometres). All three attempts at changing ACM's name have failed.
ACM has made almost all of its publications available online at its Digital Library and also has a Guide to Computing Literature. It also offers insurance and other services to its members.
ACM has created a digital library where it has made all of its publications available. ACM’s digital library is the world’s largest collection of information on computing machinery and contains an archive of journals, magazines, conference proceedings online, and the recent issues of ACM’s publications. Online services include a forum called Ubiquity and Tech News digest, both containing the latest information about the IT world.
ACM's primary competitor is the IEEE Computer Society. It is difficult to generalize accurately about the distinction between the two, but ACM focuses on theoretical computer science and end-user applications while IEEE focuses more on hardware and standardization issues. Another blunt way to state the difference is that ACM is for computer scientists and IEEE is for electrical engineers, although the largest IEEE subgroup is its Computer Society. Of course, there is significant overlap between the two organizations, and they occasionally cooperate on projects like developing computer science curricula.
The President of the ACM for 2004–2006 is David A. Patterson of the University of California, Berkeley, Amerika Serikat.
ACM has four “Boards” that make up various committees and subgroups, to help Headquarters staff maintain quality services and products. These boards are as follows:ACM's committee on women in computing is set up to support, inform, celebrate, and work with women in computing. Dr. Anita Borg was a great supporter of ACM-W. ACM-W provides various resources for women in computing as well as high school girls interested in the field. ACM-W also reaches out internationally to those women who are involved and interested in computing.