Comments on: Disappointed with the British Computer Society http://blog.punchbarrel.com/2008/12/03/disappointed-with-the-british-computer-society/ Frank Carver's musings about software and life Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:15:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Andrew Beresford http://blog.punchbarrel.com/2008/12/03/disappointed-with-the-british-computer-society/comment-page-1/#comment-1219 Andrew Beresford Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:28:28 +0000 http://blog.punchbarrel.com/?p=849#comment-1219 I was a full member of the BCS 5 years ago but let my membership lapse. The main reason was because of their total lack of relevance. Just take a look at the list of Special Interest Groups at http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.5878 - six groups dedicated to Health Informatics, one for Fortran, yet nothing for C, C++, Java, Systems Administration (my own area!), Linux, UNIX or Windows. Hardly reflective of modern computing. All the topics seem to focus either on niche-areas (Geospatial, Payroll) or the middle-management topics that you mentioned. The growth of the internet has seen the growth of other forums for these conversations to be held and the BCS, being a closed shop, is hardly likely to make any new inroads there because of network effect. I'm more likely to become a member of the USENIX SAGE Special Interest Group, because it reflects the industry I work in far better than the BCS does. Plus, the BCS Car Insurance policy isn't anywhere near as low as my current car quote :) I was a full member of the BCS 5 years ago but let my membership lapse. The main reason was because of their total lack of relevance.

Just take a look at the list of Special Interest Groups at http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.5878 – six groups dedicated to Health Informatics, one for Fortran, yet nothing for C, C++, Java, Systems Administration (my own area!), Linux, UNIX or Windows. Hardly reflective of modern computing. All the topics seem to focus either on niche-areas (Geospatial, Payroll) or the middle-management topics that you mentioned.

The growth of the internet has seen the growth of other forums for these conversations to be held and the BCS, being a closed shop, is hardly likely to make any new inroads there because of network effect.

I’m more likely to become a member of the USENIX SAGE Special Interest Group, because it reflects the industry I work in far better than the BCS does.

Plus, the BCS Car Insurance policy isn’t anywhere near as low as my current car quote :)

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