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There is a point of view that says that computer science conferences exist for the purpose of gaming the tenure system. The name of the game is plausible deniab

There is a point of view that says that computer science conferences exist for the purpose of gaming the tenure system. The name of the game is plausible deniability: you're not supposed to submit papers that contain known false claims, but everything else is fair game. And this has become such an integral part of the culture that technical correctness is no longer a necessary condition for accepting a paper [1]. I think in this light it's quite clear why many scientists are happy to leave their papers hidden behind the ACM paywall. [1] http://agtb.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/should-technical-errors-disqualify-conference-papers/ http://agtb.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/should-technical-errors...

ahelwer 13y ago
Thank you, that was a fascinating read. It is understandable that technical errors are given a pass, as they aren't the meat of the paper. In the case of the Booth paper, I really should state I do not mean to attack him. The idea of using the KMP preprocess to solve the problem is a wonderful approach and works very well despite the actual implementation being technically incorrect. If I recall, the bug had to do with the termination condition; the algorithm had to run twice as long to terminate correctly. I will say my understanding of the algorithm improved as a result of debugging it!