I keep getting mail form the Association for Computing Machinery urging me to join up and get access to all these wonderful resources.
At something like $84 (USD) a year and with the dollar/pound exchange rate it isn't a lot of money, but is it worth it?
Any opinions?
I think so, for the Communications magazine, Queue magazine, and online books.
Additionally, you get reduced registration fees for the ACM conferences. So if you plan to attend one or two of them per year, you've almost got the membership fee back.
Been a member for decades. The Comm. ACM is an amazing magazine. Unlike the freebie magazines (Computer World, Info Week, etc.) it's not filled with 90% press releases and 10% original content. It's 95% original content. Consequently, it's often way, way leading edge. It doesn't address vendors, products, and techniques for using those products. People call this "too academic" and "not practitioner-friendly".
Have I gotten a solution to a client problem from CACM? Probably not. There's no direct $$$ value in subscribing.
Have I seen what top minds are doing? Does that color my thinking? Does that make me look around at new possibilities? Yes. The indirect $$$ value is awareness, confidence, background. Fluffy intangibles.
Did it make me aware of the leading edge? Sometimes. When product announcements come out, and I've read about that technology in CACM, I can better filter the reality from the marketing hype. The track from research to product isn't linear, and often isn't clear. But a few products have shown up as research topics first.
The Digital Library is chock full of algorithms and fundamental research. I spent some time there a few years back researching algorithms for calculating the chi-squared tables published in statistics books. Value? Who knows.
The Queue magazine is focused more on the nuts and bolts of getting stuff done every day. I confess that I get it in my email and don't read it as often as I should. When it came out in print, however, I did read every issue. [Print magazines are good lunch-time reading. On-line magazines not so much.] Perhaps I should switch my subscription.
I'd love to, but $84 every year starts to add up pretty quick. :(
To all the University students out there: you can get a free membership if you compete in an ACM Programming Competition.
I've done a lot of work that has given me exposure to interviews with previous presidents and CEOs of the ACM. It's a very tricky area to have a professional society in, and they tend towards the esoteric and academic. In fact, while there's a large number of engineers in the society, they often tend towards appealing towards the scholar instead, assuming that engineers will also be members of more applied societies. If you're looking for a Scientific American-type publication with your membership, you should look into the IEEE Computer Society and their Spectrum magazine, which is a lot less oriented towards the academic than the CACM.
On the other hand, if you're interested in staying up to date on a variety of issues in academic computer science, either to apply to engineering or because CS is your profession, this is the society you want to participate in. The SIGs are a great opportunity to get some visibility in a sub-field where you'd like to orient your research program or to ramp yourself up on a topic without also having to hear about stuff you're just not interested in.
And then again, if you want to get the maximum benefit, why not just join both?
Yes. Totally worth it. You get access to Books 24x7 and a subset of O'Reilly Safari. This is included in the annual membership fee. There are a great number of programming books in both libraries. That alone is worth the price of admission, and is why I keep renewing year after year.
As already noted, access to a subset of O'Reilly Safari and to 24x7 books can be helpful, especially if you don't have these for other reasons. The ACM Digital Library is also good value if you have sufficient interest somewhere in the range of topics covered. All these presuppose you are happy with reading material on the screen, of course.
On costs: life membership can be good value (it was for me) and, unlike some other professional organisations there are no requirements to have already been a member for a decade or three! Lifetime access to the Digital Library can be added to professional life membership. Though the initial payment is large there are no more payments and no future price rises :-)
I've been tempted... online access to periodicals seemed to be much more affordable than IEEE's. (yes, different subject, but the only reason I maintain IEEE membership is my employer will pay for it. ACM I've been thinking about joining on my own dime.)
Also, see this other Stack Overflow question: Is it worthwhile for programmers to join professional organisations?