After 47 Years, Computerworld Ceases Print Publication 105
harrymcc (1641347) writes "In June 1967, a weekly newspaper called Computerworld launched. Almost exactly 47 years later, it's calling it quits in print form to focus on its website and other digital editions. The move isn't the least bit surprising, but it's also the end of an era--and I can' t think of any computing publication which had a longer run. Over at Technologizer, I shared some thoughts on what Computerworld meant to the world, to its publisher, IDG, and to me."
CACM is older (Score:3, Informative)
Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery was first published in 1957.
Re:CACM is older (Score:5, Informative)
yes, that the magazine (still around) that published the famous (or infamous) letter by Edsger Dijkstra "Go to Statement Considered Harmful", which I'll bet half of slashdotters have heard referenced
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A break only terminates the innermost loop. Gotos are a perfectly fine way to exit a deeply nested set of loops, or jump to error-handling code. The test for using a goto mostly boils down to this: did it make the code clearer and more readable by using a goto? If not, don't use one.
A goto is just a jmp. There is no reason to be scared of it, just treat it with the proper respect and don't over-use it. Same can be said of inheritance, after all.
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Well, I'll have a pint, thank you!
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It's luck until you can repeat it.
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Thoughts Baby Boomers (and older) never, ever, EVER have:
Oh, old Gramps here can trump your whole list:
Thoughts millenials (and younger) never, ever, EVER have:
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Let's add to this: "You are not entitled to change a name, remove an item or alter a place because it offends you, no matter your age." This is an abuse of the freedom that those dudes who you see in the picture wearing those crazy white wigs fought for, gave up their money for and yes even died for. A c
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Wow, Forget your meds?
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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And yes, I realize this is a computer magazine, and probably had higher internet adoption, but other magazines get printed as well. Some of which aren't geared towards techies that used the internet in 1990.
And on a personal note, early 90s childhood me would like that thank gaming magazines. Mostly for cheat codes.
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You know, that's pretty much what I thought at the time. Despite my prediction, it caught on.
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Even though it was the quintessential collection of text files, something about having a physical copy kept me buying the occasional 2600 magazine until the early 2000's.
Re:Did anyone care anymore? (Score:4, Funny)
Yup we didn't need print magazines in the 80's. Because downloading images at 2400 baud and displaying them on your 8 color computer was vastly superior to full color printing and inexpensive monthly delivery.
I used to print out source to do code reviews, because I was too impatient to wait for VGA projectors to be invented.
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I think I bought my last computer magazine in about 2000. The web killed the market for such things long ago.
Although the Internet has certainly put a big dent in all magazine sales, I've been noticing that most magazine publishers are their own worst enemy -- less content, lower quality content, more ads and higher prices.
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That has much to do with lowered demand. Content (particularly quality content) is a fixed cost for any particular issue, so if the circulation goes way down it's going to be under serious cost pressure. Ads and price increases increase revenue, and offset loss of revenue from lowered demand. After a while, of course, this can get into a death spiral.
I cared. (Score:1)
Good unchangeable hard-copy print publications with typically far more reliable information. Pretty damned good vs the internet for a leisurely search if you keep shit organized.
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Been an advert fest for as long as I remember (Score:2)
Of course, so was MacWorld and the like. Anyone remember what a big deal HotWired was back in the mid nineties?
Gladly, we can kill online ads through ad blockers so the revenue stream for such a magazine doesn't support it as a sustainable "business".
Any meaningful insight comes straight from important folks' blogs, tweets and mouths at conferences. Discussion or editorials are done at places like /. , Reddit or HN. Internet successfully disintermediates yet another "market" and everyone benefits.
Re:Been an advert fest for as long as I remember (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes it was the advertising that we craved.
Computer Shopper [wikipedia.org] was something we used to eagerly await the arrival of.
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DirtCheapDrives.com baby. Fuck yea CS was one thing I looked forward to 18 years ago.
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I loved those bible sized tomes, reading about all of the computers I couldn't afford because I was a poor college student. It was all about the advertising, and it was fantastic.
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There is far more content today, more diverse and more knowledgeable than there was then. It is very much like the switch from Britannica to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is 100x larger and with web links allows people to more successfully research far more topics than Britannica ever could. Those magazines were geared towards selling readers to advertisers just as much as
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" Wikipedia is 100x larger and with web links allows people to more successfully research far more topics than Britannica ever could."
All paid off, most likely, with maybe 2% of paid contributors actually disclosing their affiliation.
A more contemporary example (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yes. But technology has never been the same without Desmond Crisis, Richard Hart, Sofie Formica, and especially John C. Dvorak's silly little "Try It, Buy It, Skip It" rev
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One little thing I love e-zines for is putting an end to that annoying and worthless "Continued on page 357" convention that print magazines all have. The extra leafing time it took to read one article may have been trivial, but add it up over three-fourths of a reading lifetime and it turns into a major "Why didn't they think of that years ago!"
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This. Particularly since many print magazines don't print the numbers on a surprising number of pages (ads, the first page or spread of an article, on infographics ...) so there isn't even an easy way to seek to the continuation.
The web has invented its version as well, though, with what would be a six-inch newspaper article spread across 3 pages. "one page view" is now a subscriber-only feature :/
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"so there isn't even an easy way to seek to the continuation."
So you're incapable of counting the sides of pages, is that what you're saying?
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Nothing better than sitting round a fire reading up on your interests...
Sure you can say "bring your tablet with the magazines loaded", but that doesn't really get you away from a screen now does it?
Just my 2c
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Its no different bringing a tablet or eink reader to camp than a stack of books. You are still distracting yourself.
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"Must say that even though I work in IT I don't like the major reliance on screens for everything"
As opposed to what, beaming it directly to your brain?
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Well, to each their own.
I've never enjoyed trying to read by firelight when camping. Using lanterns is even worse; they attract the bugs. I won't read during the daylight hours; those are for hiking and photos and such.
Re:Magazines still exist? (Score:4, Insightful)
Magazines do still exist. They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article. Not every article in our life needs to be a sound-bite or mutli-page hit-trap or digital-tracking-adware or regurgitated listicle or blog of J. Q. Random or have audio and video ads in the gutter. For the moment, the reading public does not seem to be willing to pay a subscription fee for a website so for the moment good journalism and literature magazines still sell subscriptions that include digital and print publications. Sometime soon in the future the model will change but good journalism and literature is not free nor have ads been sufficient to support them. Until we find a business model that works, we will make due with a hybrid system.
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Magazines do still exist. They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article.
Umm i have not seen a magazine that didn't insert ads in their content on the pages for decades. Sure they dont popup in your face, or play a movie, but they are still there.
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Magazines do still exist. They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article.
Umm i have not seen a magazine that didn't insert ads in their content on the pages for decades. Sure they dont popup in your face, or play a movie, but they are still there.
You need to look at more magazines.
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Consumer Reports has no ads.
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"They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article"
Uh, have you seen magazines these days? You've got half a column of story/review, and the rest of the two pages ends up being advertisements.
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"They fill a niche for those that want to read a long-form ad-free article"
Uh, have you seen magazines these days? You've got half a column of story/review, and the rest of the two pages ends up being advertisements.
I have. They're not all like that.
You mean it was still available on paper? (Score:2)
I'm a dead tree fan for most technical pubs, but I swear it's been 10 years since I've seen a paper copy of COMPUTERWORLD. I've seen the mainframe articles dwindle, the PC section vanish into mainstream articles, and a lot more, but when my paper subscription expired and they invited me to read it online, I never went back.
My postman used to hate those things. They had to be crammed into mailboxes. It was tabloid-sized and often fairly thick to boot. I think I've got the 1000th issue in a closet.
I think I miss computer shopper more (Score:3)
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I do nearly all my magazine-type reading on the Internet now, too, but I did enjoy the print magazines in their day, great old stuff like "Radio Electronics." Not that I wish to return to those days, which weren't really the good old days if you think objectively about it.
I still like a print newspaper but if I were to be fully honest I'd have to say it's hardly a necessity any more, and it mostly contains wire service articles I read online two days earlier.
Dr Dobbs (Score:1)
I always like Dr. Dobb's when it was just a newsletter.
Dr. Dobb's journal of Calisthenics and Orthodontia
Running light without overbyte
Interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)
What's interesting are the contents of the front page as it appears in TFA....
All and all, not so different from what one might find on a recent average day on Slashdot.
plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Nuts & Volts (Score:3)
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Nuts & Volts is still around, too.
I still have an issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that anyone cares, but this marks 20 years since I wrote an op-ed piece for Computerworld, titled "Ban Business Use of the Internet." It was on the eve of commercial interests being allowed onto the internet, and just after Canter & Siegel inundated Usenet with their Green Card Spam (look it up, kids). While I don't agree with every word I wrote, I think there were certain points I made which have come true. I wrote about corporate interests sponsoring university net feeds, and the speech restrictions that would come with it. Parallel that with the witchhunt of Aaron Swartz and his subsequent suicide.
I was going to scan in the entire text, since it's not available on the web anywhere (that I can find), just to see what others thought about how I was right and how I was wrong about the corporate "invasion" to academia.
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this marks 20 years since I wrote an op-ed piece for Computerworld, titled "Ban Business Use of the Internet."
Looks like you convinced 'em.
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That would be good to read. I was on the internet starting about 1988 and heavily by 1992. Once the AOLers came on the internet in swarms I never had much problem with the business. What changed the structure of the internet was the move away from academia to the general public IMHO not so much business.
News? (Score:2)
As essentially a paid review publication, "ComputerWorld" ceased being worth paying money for long ago.
Millions of Bird Owners (Score:2)
Bird owners are now looking for alternative cage lining materials. Rumor has it copies of "O" magazine may be the best alternative to Computerworld because it's super-absorbent and has those scratch and sniff pages all the birds will like.
Memories: Vintage Computerworld Ads (Score:2)
Before the Internet, Computerworld was the only browsing distracton at work: '80 Mbytes of storage for under $12k!' and other ad favorites through the years [computerworld.com]
no regrets (Score:3)
Great news! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a magazine about computers right? If I was the founder, I would be overjoyed that people are reading on star trek-style tablets and saving trees in process. I am sure there are publications that should not go digital only. Amish Times comes to mind. But online is a great medium for this particular one.
How little things have changed (Score:2)
How little stuff has actually changed.
The image of the very first Computerworld, the first page has a story about a patent lawsuit.
Sad that print is dying but... (Score:2)
... that "digital magazine" mention is the really scary part. That's wasted effort with a 98% chance they'll get it wrong.
Obligatory xckd: http://xkcd.com/1174/ [xkcd.com]
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Secret about magazines: copy sales never matter as much as advertising rates. You need copy sales to drive ad sales, of course. But the real money in magazines comes from the ads. Subscriber money just covers some costs.
And actually, magazines make more money from single-copy magazine sales than they do from subscribers. So while you may feel like $30 a year is a good value, the magazine would rather sell five individual copies at $6 each. They make money on that. Not so much on subscriptions.
If y
End of a niche magazine, not an era (Score:2)
When I think of "great magazines about computers" Computerworld hasn't been on that list in years. They were always the one you read after PC Mag, after PC World even, you know, if there was nothing else. Then there was Computerworld. I always suspected most people only ever read it when they got copies free at tradeshows.
Anyway, there are still great computer magazines, in my opinion. Maximum PC is currently the top of the current class, maybe whatever PC Mag is doing as a second place.
Unimpressed wi
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Not just at tradeshows. I used to read it regularly when there was an office subscription passed around with a routing slip.
I still miss Byte... (Score:2)
"Why PC's Crash, and Mainframes Don't" (April 98) is still somewhat relevant today. I wish the archives were online.
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I believe archive.org has (or had) a lot of Byte magazines downloadable as PDFs.
So long. (Score:2)