Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
employment or advancement. In response to a
Computerworld
article in
1974 titled “Why Business Users Are Turned Off by ACM,” AFIPS
president George Glaser remarked that “the general lack of success of
ACM in attracting business data processing professionals to its member-
ship has relatively little to do with the nature and extent of the services
it offers them. It is, rather, more attributable to a lack of interest on the
part of these 'professionals' in any professional society.”
116
Glaser's
comment can be read either as an indictment of the apathy of the average
computing practitioner or the policies of the ACM; either way, it suggests
the strained relationship that existed between the two communities.
Many working programmers saw little value in belonging to either the
ACM or the DPMA, and support for both organizations as well as pro-
fessional institutions in general languished during the late 1960s and
early 1970s.
