Top 10s in the ACM

Also interesting in a weird sort of way is the following Top 10 items downloaded from the DL in September 2004 lists from the same issue of the CACM as my last post. Weird because the list of top 10 refereed articles are quite uninteresting to me. None of them were even from Sept 2004, which is kinda odd, when you think about it. Also, the month rank and year rank are out of whack, leading me to believe that the results are highly influenced by random course offerings at large schools. Some topics I expected: mobile communications, curricular issues but the list didn't really strike me in an "Aha" kind of way I would have expected.

On the other hand, the list of top courses & ebooks downloaded was quite interesting, something I know is relevant for my own collection development: Java, UML, c/C++/C#, Data Modeling, Project Management and SQL. It solidifies in my mind the enduring (for now) interest among CS types for this type of information and why we can't keep the books on the shelves. What I'd like to see? How about something really good on Matlab, numerical analysis and scientific computing.

The third top ten was the list of most downloaded articles from the ACM's magazines. Again, not much from 2004, some of the year rankings and month rankings out of whack, but still very interesting. Business aspects, professional development concerns, wireless, data modeling but also a bunch of survey type articles that people are obviously using to get up to speed on certain topics.

Thanks for the info, ACM. Could we do this more often?