Semantic Werks

From Steve Yegge, on why code size is a problem:

Going back to our crazed Tetris game, imagine that you have a tool that lets you manage huge Tetris screens that are hundreds of stories high. In this scenario, stacking the pieces isn’t a problem, so there’s no need to be able to eliminate pieces. This is the cultural problem: they don’t realize they’re not actually playing the right game anymore.

I wrote Peggy Nash, MP for my riding of Parkdale-High Park, about the proposed “Canadian DMCA” legislation. Here’s her response:

Dear Neil,

Thank you for your recent letter about copyright legislation in Canada. Let me state at the outset that copyright is always a difficult balancing act between the fair use of the consumer and fair remuneration for artists. What has made the issue more difficult is the explosive growth of digital technologies in recent years.

In attempting to update copyright legislation, the previous Minister of Canadian Heritage tabled bill C-60. The NDP felt there were significant problems with this legislation. We had serious concerns about the lack of discussion on the potential impacts of providing the legal sanction of digital locks. These digital locks, also known as Digital Rights Management (DRMs) and Technological Rights Management (TPMs) could seriously impact consumer rights as well as the fair use of materials.

Concerns were also raised about placing electronic toll booths on the development of digital education opportunities. The NDP felt then, as we feel now, that legislators need to become aware of the evolving complexities of cyberspace, so that any new legislation will be relevant both to the present and the future. New legislation must also balance the rights of individual creators with those of industry and the public.

The NDP is committed to working with all stakeholders to ensure that artists receive fair remuneration for their work. But we must not blindly accept restrictive copyright legislation that could be used to quash the development of new digital distribution models, sue kids who share music files, impose tollbooths on the educational use of the Internet, and limit important research & innovation.

Please rest assured that I am studying all recommendations and am developing positions on the many facets of potential copyright legislation. There are no simple answers to this very complex issue, but I will do my utmost to ensure the government brings forward copyright legislation that is both comprehensive and balanced.

Thank you again for sharing your concerns.

Sincerely,

Apparently this is an NDP talking point-style form letter. That’s a little disappointing given Peggy was elected largely due to her opposition to Sarmite Bulte’s love-in with the Canadian record industry.

Someone made an interesting point: when the Conservatives withdrew their legislation after the public outcry, the media labeled them ‘weak’. This person found it odd that listening to the public was considered a sign of weakness.  I guess years and years of political mandarins running the show from the Prime Minister’s Office has conditioned us to Chretien/Putin-style government-by-fiat.

Clearly I’m somewhat inexperienced, having only 2 papers published to date, and never having served on review committees. However, I find the issues raised by Moshe Vardie in the SIGMOD journal very cogent. He questions the model of publishing currently in use throughout computer science research.

The typical argument is that since this is a fast-changing field (a conjecture hitherto unproven by evidence — is it faster-changing than genetics? Than theoretical physics? Than sociology?), we need to publish at annual conferences, because journal turnaround times are much too slow to keep up. Firstly, if it takes 2 years to publish in a journal, I’d argue that’s a different problem.

Vardie’s central point is that conferences aren’t doing a good job in evaluating important research. At best, he says, the reviews serve to correctly identify 1/3 to 1/4 of the interesting work. The rest is of dubious quality (relative to that rejected). Furthermore, most reviews are hardly peer-review quality, and there is little opportunity to turn things around if a paper has flaws (I expect the model used is, What a lot of submissions - if it has a single flaw, reject it.

Here’s my possible amended model: agile conference development. The call is published as normal, six months or so beforehand. The call is very tightly focused on the conference theme. For example, ICSE is not just about “software engineering”, but software engineering in a particular context, e.g. testing, formal methods, industrial experience reports, etc. Authors submit abstracts 4 months ahead of the actual conference date. The editor and two associate editors  filter aggressively any submissions out of scope. 2 months later, full submissions are due. The editor and associates check the papers for obvious problems like spelling, illegible figures, etc. Then they arrange a publishing day, during which all the program committee get together and collaboratively decide on each paper.With sites like Google Documents and others, this is becoming feasible.

Papers get sorted after a quick 10 minute scan into piles based on suitability for the conference. Those that are ‘maybes’ then get further detailed review by one specialist.

The idea is to quickly filter the papers which won’t make it (e.g., insufficient empirical support). Then, the others remaining get true peer review, fact checking, etc. There may even be room for correspondence with the authors seeking clarification.