By the time you read this, the technical program for SIGMOD'99,
to be held in Philadelphia on June 1-3, will have been decided. As all
members have access to the full offerings on SIGMOD Online at http://www.acm.org/sigmod, I urge you to check out
the papers that will be presented at that conference, which should
appear at our web site by the end of the month. The idea is that
discussion of these papers, both in the halls and during the
presentations, might be more fruitful if participants had a chance to
read the papers that interested them before attending the conference.
As you have probably heard by now, Jim Gray will be awarded our
profession's most prestigious honor, the Turing Award, at the ACM
Awards Banquet at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City on May
15. I'm very pleased that Jim has been accorded this honor, for his
seminal contributions to our discipline. He will present his Turing
Address at the SIGMOD conference, providing yet another incentive to
attend this year. Warm congratulations, Jim, for recognition so richly
deserved!
You may also know that SIGMOD'00 will be held in Dallas, Texas. As
incredible as it may seem, planning is already commencing for
SIGMOD'01, which will be somewhere on the west coast (recall that the
conference cycles east-central-west). If you would like the conference
to come to your city, please get in contact with me. I welcome short
proposals from people willing to participate in putting on this
important annual meeting.
As always, if you have other suggestions for ways that SIGMOD can
better meet your needs, or if you have ideas for SIGMOD initiatives, I
encourage you to contact me or anyone of the people listed on the
first page of this SIGMOD Record.
Rick Snodgrass
January, 1999
