Computing the Future A Broader Agenda for Computer Science and Engineering (1992) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 A CORE CS&E RESEARCH AGENDA FOR THE FUTURE
3 A CORE CS&E RESEARCH AGENDA FOR THE FUTURE
Pages 95-115
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 95... ...
Computing-inspired CS&E research has often provided the key to effective use of computers, making the difference between the impossible and the routine. The diversity of technical interests within the CS&E research community, of products from industry, of demands from commerce, and of missions between the federal research-funding agencies has created an intellectual environment in which a broad range of challenging problems and opportunities can be addressed.
|
From page 96... ...
96 CO~G ME FUTURE promising research areas that fatuous below should not be regarded as definitive or exclusive. As the saying goes/ precise predictions are difficult particularly about the future.
|
From page 97... ...
(See also Box 3.2.) Parts of the following discussion incorporate, augment, and extend key recommendations from recent reports that have addressed various fields within CS&E: the 1988 CSTB report The National Challenge in Computer Science and Technology; the 1989 Hopcroft-Kennedy report, Computer Science Achievements and Opportunities; the 1990 Lagunita report, Database Systems: Achievements and Opportunities; and the 1989 CSTB report Scaling Up: A Research Agenda for Software Engi neerlng.= PROCESSOR CAPABILITIES AND MULTIPLE-PROCESSOR SYSTEMS As noted in Chapter 6, future advances in computational speed are likely to require the connection of many processor units in parallel; Box 3.3 provides more detail.
|
From page 100... ...
The ability of parallel systems to handle many demanding comnutina problems has been demonstrated clearly during the period since the Hopcroft-Kennedy report was written. It had not been clear that linear speedups are practically achievable by using procesThe oracti 1 V 1 ~ r r ~ sors in parallel; indeed on some problems they are not.4 cat difficulty in exploiting parallel systems is that their efficient use generally requires an explicitly parallel program, and often a program that is tailored for a specific architecture.
|
From page 101... ...
DATA COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING Compared with copper wires, fiber-optic channels provide enormous bandwidths at extremely attractive costs. A 1000-fold increase in bandwidth completely changes technology trade-offs and requires a radically different network design for at least three reasons.
|
From page 102... ...
The technology for switching light pulses is immature compared with that for switching electrical signals, with the result that switching devices for fiber optics are relatively more expensive than channel capacity. As noted in Chapter 6, a complete understanding of networks based on first principles is not available at this time.
|
From page 103... ...
The committee recommends continuing efforts across a broad front to understand large-scale software engineering, concurs with the research agendas of the Hopcroft-Kennedy and CSTB reports, and wishes to underscore the importance of two key areas, reengineering of existing software and testing. Reengineering of Existing Software Large-scale users of computers place great emphasis on reliability and consistency of operation, and they have enormous investments tied up in software developed many years ago by people who have long since retired or moved on to other jobs.
|
From page 104... ...
New technologies that support effective and rapid upgrade within operational constraints would
|
From page 105... ...
Perspective Engineering practice Research modes Portray systems real~Ucally: vow sagas as systems and recognize change as intrinsic Study and preserve software art/facts Codify software engineering knowledge for dissemination and reuse Develop software ~g~e~ handbooks Foster p~ct~r researcher ~terachons Research ~ unifying model for software developmentfor matching programming languages to appl~abons domains and design phases Strengthen mathematical Id scientific foundations Automat handbook knowledge, access and reuse-and make development of routine software more routine Nurture collaboration among system developers and between developers and users Legitimize academic exploration of large software systems in situ Clean insights from behavioral and managerial sciences Develop iddibonal research directions and paradigms amours common of review studies, contribution to handbooks SOURCE: Reprinted Mom Computer Sconce and Technology Board, Nadonal Research Councit Sag by: ~ Research Banjo jar Sphere En~f~eerfng, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1989, p.
|
From page 107... ...
INFORMATION STORAGE AND MANAGEMENT The Lagunita report described an important and far-reaching agenda for database research (Box 3.7~. The committee believes that the Lagunita research agenda remains timely and appropriate, and also commends for attention: · Data mining and browsing techniques that can uncover previous
|
From page 108... ...
Multimedia databases will be especially useful to modern businesses, most of which make substantial use of text and images; document and image scanning, recognition, storage, and display are at the core of most office systems. Current networks .
|
From page 110... ...
The following technical problems are often relevant to decisions regarding whether computers should be used in critical applications: · As failures in telephone and air traffic control systems have demonstrated, errors can propagate catastrophically, causing service
|
From page 111... ...
The problems of ensuring reliability in distributed computing are multiplying at least as rapidly as solutions. · Software systems, particularly successful ones, usually change enormously with time.
|
From page 112... ...
, is another form of gesture recognition that is enormously challenging and yet has the potential for expanding the number of computer users considerably. Indeed, the ability to recognize handwritten characters, both printed and cursive, will enable computers to dispense entirely with keyboards, making them much more portable and much easier to use.
|
From page 113... ...
One is the development of devices to present threedimensional visual output that are less cumbersome than the electronic helmets often used today. A second issue cuts across all problem domains and yet depends on the specifics of each domain: many appealing examples of "virtual reality" displays have been proposed and even demonstrated, but conceiving of sensible mappings from raw data to images depends very much on the application.
|
From page 114... ...
That said, the committee believes that major qualitative and quantitative advances in several dimensions will continue to drive the evolution of computing technology. These dimensions include processor capabilities and multiple-processor systems, available bandwidth and connectivity for data communications and networking, program size and complexity, the management of increased volumes of data of diverse types and from diverse sources, and the number of people usurp computers and networks.
|
From page 115... ...
6. Distributed computing refers to multiple-processor computing in which the overall cost or performance of a computation is dominated by the requirements of communicating data between individual processors, rather than the requirements of performing computations on individual processors.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.