INTERNET RESOURCES

Computer science

A guide to selected resources on the Internet

by Michael Knee

here’s little doubt that computers have tions, conferences, em­ T had a major effect on nearly every as­ ployment resources, fel­ pect of our lives— at work, at home, and in lowships and grants, between. Computers have transformed soci­ news, organizations, plus ety worldwide and changed the way people projects and programs. work, communicate, and play. The PC on Access: http://tap.mills, your desk, lap, or palm represents centuries edu/. of progress in computing devices from count­ • Artificial InteUi- ing pebbles and knotted strings to the aba­ gence. A WWW Virtual Library site contain­ cus and adding machines. ing links to research sites and projects, Computer scientists and engineers design newsgroups, programming languages, jour­ and build computers and associated technolo­ nals, bibliographies, interactive demonstra­ gies, including the hardware, software, and tions, and commercial sites and products. operating systems. Computer science also Access: http://www.cs.reading.ac.uk/people/ encompasses theoretical and mathematical dwc/ai.html. aspects, such as the design and analysis of • Artificial Intelligence Resources. An algorithms, performance studies of systems Artificial Intelligence Internet resources list­ and components, and reliability studies. Com­ ing containing links to bibliographies, books, puter scientists seek to answer the fundamen­ companies, conferences, employment oppor­ tal question, What can be automated? tunities, journals, newsgroups, publishers, re­ Computer scientists were early users of positories and resources lists, research groups, the Internet, and there are numerous Web societies and organizations, and software re­ sites related to computer science and com­ positories and directories. Access: http://ai.iit. puting. This is a selected guide to some of nrc.ca/ai_point.html. the more useful resources. • Complexity On-line. An information service about complex systems providing Metasites/starting points access to books, journals, bibliographies, tu­ • The Ada Project (TAP). Named in torials, software, and newsgroups. Access: honor of Ada Lovelace, TAP is a clearing­ http ://complex.csu. edu. au/complex/. house for information and resources related • Computational Geometry Pages. A to women in computing. It includes publica­ metasite providing access to Web-based and

About the author I Michael Knee is physical, mathematical, and computer sciences bibliographer at the University at Albany, SUNY, Science Library, e-mail: [email protected]

C&RL News ■ June 2001 / 609 print resources dealing with computational related fields in scientific computing. Access: geometry, including links to research groups, http://www.mathcom.com/corpdir/ forums, bibliographies, job announcements, techinfo. mdir/scifaq/. books, journals, and software resources. Ac­ • A Software Engineering Resource cess: http://compgeom.cs.uiuc.edu/~jeffe/ List A listing of pointers to software engineering compgeom/. archives, research sites, conferences, and other • Concurrent Systems. A WWW Virtual related metasites. Access: http://wwwsel.iit. Library site containing pointers to informa­ nrc.ca/favs/. tion on concurrent (parallel) systems, includ­ • Theoretical Computer Science on the ing electronic repositories, research groups Web. This site contains links to papers and and centers, research projects, tools, meet­ sites of interest to the theory community; it ings, and journals. Access: http://www.afm. includes organizations, journals, conferences, sbu. ac. uk/concurrent/. bibliographies, lecture notes, software, reposi­ • Formal Methods. A WWW Virtual Li­ tories, newsgroups, and mailing lists. Access: brary site containing links to information on http://robotics.stanford.edu/~suresh/theory/ formal methods, including announcements, theory-home. html. introductory articles, publications (bibliogra­ • The Virtual Museum of Computing. phies, books, journals, and collections of tech­ This WWW Virtual Library site is a collection nical reports), individual notations, methods, of Web sites connected to the history of com­ and tools, meetings, projects, companies, or­ puting. It also lists online computer-based ganizations, newsgroups and mailing lists, exhibits. Access: http://palimpsest.Stanford, plus a “who’s who.” Access: http://www.afm. edu/icom/vlmp/computing. html. sbu.ac.uk/. • WWW Computer Architecture Home • The Genetic Programming Notebook. Page. A Web site that provides access to com­ An extensive collection of links to informa­ puter architecture research groups, research­ tion on genetic programming, genetic algo­ ers, conferences, tools, simulators, bench­ rithms, artificial intelligence, evolutionary marks, books, online publications, organiza­ computation, and robotics. It includes access tions, and newsgroups. Access: http://www. to bibliographies, books, software, people, cs.wisc.edu/~arch/www/. groups, journals, conferences, courses, tuto­ rials, and news. Access: http://www. Academic departments and genetieprogramming. com/. institutes • Logic Programming. As part of the • Computer Science Departments WWW Virtual Library, Logic Programming Across the Web. A listing with links to Web contains links to general repositories, Prolog, and gopher servers of academic computer window system interfaces, other logic pro­ science departments around the world. Ac­ gramming systems, meetings, and books. cess: http: //triluminary. cs. haverford. edu/CS- Access.- http://www.afm.sbu.ac.uk/logic- Departments.html. prog/. • Graduate Assistantship Directory • Resources for Programming Lan­ (GAD). “GAD” is a publication of the Asso­ guage Research. A collection of links to re­ ciation for Computing Machinery; it provides sources for research in programming lan­ information on graduate programs in com­ guage theory, design, implementation, and puting, including degrees offered and spe­ related areas. This site also includes language cialties, numbers of faculty and students, fac­ overviews with access to language-specific ulty interest areas, computer equipment avail­ sites, bibliographies, publications, and con­ able, types and amounts of financial aid avail­ ferences. Access: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/ able to qualified students, and admissions re­ cs. cmu.edu/user/mleone/web/language- quirements and application deadlines. Access.- research.html. http://www. acm. org/ gad/. • Scientific Computing FAQ: S.C., Nu­ • Institutes, Centers, and Laboratories. merical Analysis, and Associated Fields A worldwide list of computer science insti­ Resource Guide. This metasite lists and links tutes, centers, and laboratories. Access: to resources, such as electronic resources and http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/bySubject/Computing/ software catalogs for numerical analysis and Overview. html#inst.

610 / C&RL News ■ June 2001 • Supercomputing Centers and Paral­ The subscription-based ACM Digital Library lel Computing. A list of institutions from contains full text of articles and papers from IEEE’s ParaScope site involved in high-per­ all of its journals, magazines, and proceed­ formance computing and parallel computing. ings; nonsubscribers can view tables of con­ Access: http://computer.org/parascope/#par- tents and abstracts. Access: http://info.acm.org/. allel. • IEEE Computer Society. Founded in 1947, the IEEE Computer Society is the world’s Algorithm collections oldest and largest (98,000 members) profes­ • Collected Algorithm s (CALGO) o f the sional association of people in computing. The Association for Computing Machinery site contains a full range of information about (ACM). CALGO contains software associated conferences, standards, publications, activities, with papers published in the ACM Transac­ education, certification, and employment. The tions on Mathematical Software and other subscription-based Digital Library includes full ACM journals. The software is refereed for text of articles from its transactions and maga­ originality, accuracy, robustness, complete­ zines, and papers from selected proceedings; ness, portability, and lasting value. The site nonsubscribers can view tables of contents and begins with algorithm number 49 (issued in abstracts. Access: http://www.computer.oig/. 1975), however, there are several earlier algo­ • Resources of Scholarly Societies: rithms. Access: http://www.acm.org/calgo/. Computer Science. This listing is part of the • The Stony Brook Algorithm Reposi­ Scholarly Societies Project, sponsored by the tory. Based on his book The Algorithm De­ University of Waterloo Library. It provides ac­ sign Manual, Steven S. Skiena has mounted cess to Web sites maintained by and for schol­ this site containing a collection of algorithm arly computer science societies around the implementations for more than 70 of the most world. Access: http://www.scholarly-societies. fundamental problems in combinatorial al­ org/compsci_soc. html. gorithms. Access: http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/ • Society for Industrial and Applied -algorith/. Mathematics (SIAM). A group of profession­ als formed SLAM in 1952 to advance the ap­ Associations, organizations, and plication of mathematics to science and in­ societies dustry. SIAM members are computer scien­ • American Association for Artificial tists, mathematicians, engineers, statisticians, Intelligence (AAAI). The AAAI, founded in and engineers. This site includes information 1979, is a scientific society devoted to ad­ about their publications, conferences, meet­ vancing the scientific understanding of the ings, and subscription access to SIAM’S online mechanisms underlying thought and intelli­ journals. Access: http://www.siam.org/. gent behavior and their embodiment in ma­ chines. The site contains information on arti­ Bibliographies/pre-prints/technical ficial intelligence, AAAI publications (books, reports journals, conference proceedings, and tech­ • The Collection of Computer Science nical papers), conference, workshop, and Bibliographies. This database is a collec­ symposia information, and membership ben­ tion of records from nearly 1,400 bibliogra­ efits. Access: http://www.aaai.org/. phies, covering most areas of computer sci­ • Association for Computing Machin­ ence. The records contain references to jour­ ery (ACM). Billing itself as “the first society nal articles, conference papers, and techni­ in computing,” the ACM is the world’s first cal reports. The collection, which is updated educational and scientific computing society. monthly, may be searched by author, title, Founded in 1947, its mem­ journal, conference, or words anywhere in bership currently totals more the record; it’s also possible to limit the search than 80,000 computing pro­ by publication type a.nd year. Access: fessionals and students http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/. worldwide. The site includes • CogPrints Electronic Archive: Com­ information about ACM ac­ puter Science. An electronic archive contain­ tivities, services, conferences, ing pre-refereed preprints and published pa­ publications, and policies. pers that are pertinent to the study of cogni-

C&RL News ■ June 2001 / 611 tion. Access:http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/ Access: http://www.cs.emu.edu/afs/cs.emu. view-comp. html. edu/user/jblythe/Mosaic/cs-reports. html. • Computer Science Technical Reports • PrePRINT Network. Developed by the Archive Sites. A listing of academic and re­ U.S. Department of Energy, the PrePRINT search institutions around the world that dis­ Network furnishes access to electronic pre­ tribute online computer science technical prints available from academic institutions, re­ reports. Access: http://www.eccc.uni-trier.de/ search laboratories, and individual authors. The eccc/info/ftp_sites. html. PrePRINT Alerts feature allows users to cre­ • The Computing Research Repository ate personal profiles that will then notify the (CoRR). Sponsored through a partnership of the user as new information is added. ACM, the Los Alamos e-Print archive, and Access: http://www.osti.gov/preprints/ Networked Computer Science Technical Ref­ computertech. html. erence Library (NCSTRL), CoRR seeks to be • Researchindex. Produced at the NEC the single repository to which researchers Research Institute, Researchindex is a database from the whole field of computer science will containing citations to journal articles, confer­ submit reports as a means of rapid dissemi­ ence papers, and technical reports in computer nation of research results. The database is and allied sciences. In addition to a list of docu­ searchable by a combination of author, title, ments, an author or subject search automati­ keyword, journal, subject class, and report cally generates the search context and a list of number; or it may be perused by subject class. related documents. The autonomous citation Access: http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/cs/intro. indexing feature executes a citation search simi­ html. lar to Science Citation Index. Many of the cita­ • Electronic Colloquium on Computa­ tions are linked to the full text. Access: tional Complexity (ECCC). ECCC provides http ://citeseer. nj. nec. com/. links to research reports, monographs, lec­ • Virtual Technical Reports Center. Ar­ ture notes, survey reports, and theses deal­ ranged alphabetically by institution, the Cen­ ing with computational complexity. Access: ter lists sites around the world that provide http://www. eccc. uni-trier, de/eccc/. access to the full text of their technical re­ • The Hypertext Bibliography Project. ports, preprints, reprints, dissertations, the­ This bibliography is comprised of bibliogra­ ses, or research reports. Access: http://www. phies from key computer science journals, lib. umd. edu/UMCP/EN GIN/TechReports/Vir- and IEEE, ACM, and SIAM symposia. The tual-TechReports. html. entire bibliography or individual journals may be searched by author, title, or abstract key­ Calculators words. There is also an attempt being made • Calculators On-Line Center: Engi­ to create a “citation index” similar to Science neering: Electrical & Computer. As a part Citation Index. Access: http://theory. Jim Martindale’s “The Reference Desk,” com­ lcs.mit.edu/~dmjones/hbp/. puter scientists and students will find links to • Networked Computer Science Tech­ calculators from the basic to the complex. nical Reports Library (NCSTRL). NCSTRL Access: http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/ is a collection of research RefCalculators4A. html. reports and papers from in­ stitutions awarding doctoral Compilers and interpreters degrees in computer sci­ • Catalog of Free Compilers and Inter­ ence or engineering, and preters. This catalog lists links to freely available some industrial and govern­ software for language tools, including compilers, ment research laboratories. compiler generators, interpreters, translators, im­ NCSTRL may be searched by portant libraries, and assemblers. Access: author, title, or keyword in abstract; or browsed http://www.idiom.com/free-compilers/. by year, author, or institution. Access: http://cs- tr.cs.comell.edu/. Dictionaries and encyclopedias • O n-line CS T echreports. A listing with • BABEL. A glossary of computer-oriented links to sites around the world that have abbreviations and acronyms. Access: online computer science technical reports. http://www.cs.tut.fi/tlt/stuff/misc/babeLhtml.

612 / C&RL News ■ June 2001 • Dictionary of PC Hardware and Data • Directory of Computing Science Communications Terms. Written by Journals. A listing of more than 500 com­ Mitchell Shnier and published by O’Reilly & puter science journals arranged alphabetically Associates, this comprehensive dictionary by title with a title keyword index. Each jour­ provides complete descriptions of complex nal listed contains links to its Web page, table terms. Access: http://www.ora.com/reference/ of contents, abstracts, and full text (for sub­ dictionary/. scribers). Access: http://elib.cs.sfu.ca/Collec- • Online Dictionary of Computing. A tions/CMPT/cs-journals/. searchable dictionary of acronyms, program­ • The Electronic Journal of Combina­ ming languages, tools, architectures, operat­ torics. A fully refereed electronic journal that ing systems, networking, theory, mathemat­ publishes papers in all branches of discrete ics, telecoms, institutions, companies, mathematics, including combinatorics, graph projects, products, and history. Access: theory, and discrete algorithms. Access: http://www.instantweb.com/foldoc/. http://www.combinatorics.org/. • The Language List. A list and descrip­ • Electronic Transactions on Artificial tion of all known computer programming Intelligence (ETAI). ETAI is more than a con­ languages. Access: http://cui.unige.ch/cgi-bin/ ventional journal gone electronic. It is also a langlist/. medium for scientific communication and a • Webopedia: Online Computer Dictio­ forum for exchange of scientific results, in­ nary for Internet Terms and Technical formation about current events, and debate Support An online dictionary of computer- and about recently published research results. Ac­ Internet-related terms. Access: http://www. cess: http://www. ida. liu. se/ext/etai/. pcwebopaedia.com/. • Free Scholarly Electronic Journals- Computers/IT. An annotated webliography in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship1 covering free scholarly com­ puting journals. Access: http://www.library. ucsb.edu/is tl/OO-fall/internet-b. ht ml#comp. • Whatis. An encyclopedia of informa­ • Top 100 Computer Magazines. This tion technology; it includes a comprehensive site provides a listing with links to the top listing of every file format in the world. Ac­ 100 computer (software, network, and mi­ cess: http://whatis. techtarget. com/. croprocessor) Web magazines. The magazines are ranked by “Web influence” and can be Electronic journals displayed alphabetically by title or by rank. This section concentrates on electronic jour­ Access: http://www.internetvalley.com/ nals and magazines that are freely accessible topl00mag.html. on the Web and Web sites that list comput­ ing and computer science periodicals. As de­ Employment scribed above, access to the e-journals from • ACM Career Opportunities. A listing professional associations like ACM and IEEE of job opportunities, mostly in academic insti­ requires a subscription. Commercial publish­ tutions, which have appeared as advertise­ ers such as Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley also ments in ACM publications. Access: provide subscription-based access to the elec­ http //www.acm.org/cacm/careeropps/. tronic versions of their journals. EBSCO Aca­ • Developers.Net. A comprehensive demic Search, Expanded Academic ASAP, and employment site for software professionals other fee-based, full-text journal aggregators that provides access to numerous developer’s provide access to numerous computing jour­ jobs across the United States. Access: nals and magazines. http ://www. developers. net/. • Computer Science Journals. Arranged alphabetically by publisher and title, this is a no-nonsense guide to the tables of contents of selected computer science journals. Ac­ cess: http://www. informatik. uni-trier. de/~ley/ db/journals/.

C&RL News ■ June 2001 / 613 • IEEE Careers for Electrical Engi­ • CODE Visual Parallel Programming neers & Computer Scientists. The IEEE System . Computationally Oriented Display student career Web site is an excellent ca­ Environment (CODE) is a visual parallel pro­ reer resource; it includes information on gram that allows users to change a sequen­ finding a job, career planning, salaries, and tial program into a parallel one. The soft­ an employer database. Access: http://www. ware must be downloaded and installed on ieee.org/organizations/eab/studentcareers.htm. a UNIX system. Access: http://www.es. utexas.edu/users/code/. Meetings and conferences • Computer Vision Handbook. The pur­ • Meeting/Conference Announcement pose of this handbook is to outline impor­ Lists: Computer Science. Compiled by the tant ideas and techniques used in computer University of Waterloo Scholarly Societies vision and to furnish references to books, Project, this site links to information on up­ papers, and Web sites containing additional coming meetings and conferences. Access.- information. Access-. http://www.cs.hmc.edu/ http://www. scholarly-societies .org/meetings. -fleck/computer-vision-handbook/. html#COMPUTERSCI. • Designing and Building Parallel Pro­ gram s. This is the online version of the Programming languages, courses, Addison-Wesley text Designing and Building and tutorials Parallel Programs by Ian Foster. The site in­ This section lists Web sites, courses, and tu­ tegrates the contents of the book with a col­ torials dealing with programming languages lection of public domain parallel software and other computing topics, concepts, or tools and a set of links to other information technology. Programmers’ Oasis is listed first on parallel and distributed computing. Ac­ because it provides access to numerous pro­ cess: http ://www-unix. mes. anl. gov/ dbpp/. gramming language Web sites, courses, and • The Fortran Library. The Fortran Li­ tutorials that are otherwise not listed here. brary contains a collection of general pur­ • Programmer’s Oasis. This site contains pose Fortran 90 routines that can be used to links to programming language Web sites, simplify the development of programs with courses, and tutorials with information on com­ a batch-style input/output interface. Most of pilers and translators, newsgroups, organiza­ the routines can be used to perform stan­ tions and standards, Windows family program­ dard non-numeric coding tasks. Access.- ming, algorithms and data structures, news, http ://www. pnl. gov/berc/flib/. and other sites of interest to programmers. • A Gentle Introduction to Haskell. The Access- http://www, netti.fi/~simos/oasis/. goal of this tutorial is to provide an introduc­ • All BASIC Code Archives. The archives tion to the Haskell programming language are a comprehensive collection of BASIC Code for a programmer who has experience with for the various BASIC languages, covering all at least one other functional language. Ac­ operating systems, but focusing on DOS and cess: http://www.haskell.org/tutorial/. Windows. There are source code packets avail­ • The GP Tutorial A basic tutorial on ge­ able for QuickBasic, PowerBasic, VisualBasic, netic programming. Access.- http://www. LíbertyBasic, ASIC, Rapid-Q, and XBasic. Ac­ geneticprogramming.com/Tutorial. cess: http://www.basicguru.com/abc/. • Help-Site Computer Manuals. Help- • The Art of Assembly Language Pro­ Site contains links to computer-related sup­ gram m ing. This is an in-depth tutorial on port documents and sites, including FAQ lists, assembly language programming in PDF for­ tutorials, manuals, and official or unofficial mat. Access to the 25 chapters and three ap­ support sites. Access: http://help-site.com/. pendices is provided by a thorough table of • Learn C/C++ Today. After furnishing contents and index. Access: http://webster. some background and tools required for C cs. ucr. edu/P a ge_a s m/ArtofAssembly/pdf/ and C++, this site lists several tutorials avail­ AoAPDF.html. able on the Web. Access.- http://www. • C Programming. This site is an introduc­ cyberdiem. com/vin/learn. html. tory C tutorial; it includes an online test and sample • Linux Documentation Project (LDP). programming problems. Access-. http://math. LDP provides access to Linux guides (book nmu.edu/programming/c/cstart.htffl. length), HOWTOs (documents on specific

6 1 4 /C&RL News ■ June 2001 subjects), FAQs (questions with answers), man technical tips. Access: http://searchvb. pages (help with individual commands), and techtarget.com/. the “Linux Gazette” (a magazine with tips and • TTT System: Topic, Task, & Test. The tricks). Access: http://www.linuxdoc.org/. TTT System includes topics (background • MSDN Online. Microsoft Developers readings), tasks (activities for practice), and Network provides a bounty of technical in­ tests (multiple choice and interactively formation, sample code, documentation, tech­ graded) for beginners who want to learn how nical articles, and reference guides for de­ to write programs in the C++ language. Ac­ velopers using Microsoft tools, products, and cess: http://clio.mit.csu.edu.au/TTT/ stdcpp/. technologies. It also contains standards and • UNEXhelp for Users. This site contains release information, as well as samples, helpful information for users of the UNIX downloads, and tutorials. Access: http://msdn. operating system. It is organized by tasks, com­ microsoft. com/default. asp. mands, concepts, and utilities, and includes a • Numerical Recipe Books On-Line. searchable glossary. Access: http://cypress. The site provides access to the complete text mcsr. olemiss. edu/unixhelp/. of the following Numerical Recipes book from • World Lecture Hall—Computer Science. Cambridge University Press: Numerical Reci­ The World Lecture Hall has an extensive listing pes in C: The Art of Scientific Computing, Nu­ of computing and computer science courses. merical Recipes in Fortran 77: The Art of Sci­ Ac‹æsx http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/cs/. entific Computing, and Numerical Recipes in Fortran 90: The Art of Parallel Scientific Com­ Note puting. Access: http://lib-www.lanl.gov/nu- 1. Michael Fosmire and Elizabeth Young, merical/. “Free Scholarly Electronic Journals: An An­ • searchVB.com. searchVB.com is a notated Webliography,” Issues in Science and technology specific search engine for Vi­ Technology Librarianship 28 (Fall 2000), sual Basic (VB). It provides access to VB http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/OO-fall/ Web sites, news, products, services, and internet.html (20 November 2000). ■

( “Crossing the divide” cont. from page 594) “LiveHelp” incorporates LivePerson chat “It takes a conscious effort to create part­ software, which allows for canned responses nerships,” said participant John Forsythe of and the pushing of Web pages. The vision for Bowling Green, Ohio. “The library is the the service is to provide users with access to ultimate facilitator.”—Naomi Sutherland, high-quality reference service digitally anytime University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, from anywhere, for reference service to be a [email protected] key component of the digital library, and for it to be “high tech and high touch.” Digital dominoes LiveHelp is staffed by a combination of This well-attended panel presentation, “Digi­ librarians and reference assistants. tal Dominoes: The Impact of Digital Refer­ Constantine acknowledged that implemen­ ence on the Traditional Reference Model,” tation of digital reference requires a shifting described the MIT and Cornell University of resources. Deborah Helman, Lisa Horowitz, real-time digital reference projects. Pat Sarah Wenzel (MIT), and Nancy Skipper Flanagan (MIT) gave an overview of their (Cornell) spoke about software selection and pilot project “Ask Us!—Live,” which uses the other planning issues, policy issues, training, chat and cobrowsing capabilities of LSSI soft­ staffing, and marketing of their digital refer­ ware. Volunteer librarians from all MIT li­ ence services. Possible developments may braries staff the service. She reported that include collaboration with other libraries to the user satisfaction rate has been high. Paul provide extended hours of service, voiceover Constantine (Cornell University) discussed IP capability, and real-time technical, interli­ the development of their “LiveHelp” service, brary loan, and technical assistance.—Martha which has been operational since January Tarlton, University o f North Texas Libraries, 2000. [email protected] ■

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