For reasons that glimpse back to the past, while still looking ahead to the future, this issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal is especially significant for us. As you've probably already noticed, with this issue we've launched a new logo, one that emphasizes the name Dr. Dobb's Journal and puts the descriptive tagline "Software Tools for the Professional Programmer" back in what I consider its proper (less dominant) perspective. Our reason for doing this is quite straightforward: When most people, including those of us who put the magazine together every month, think of this publication, it's DDJ, Dr. Dobb's, or simply the Journal that comes to mind.
There's a lot of recognition, historical and otherwise, that goes with the name Dr. Dobb's Journal and, to borrow from a recent article in American Heritage magazine that acknowledged the 100th anniversary of the Wall Street Journal, "I am pleased to report that the Journal's editors ... awakened to the value of preserving an institutional memory." That's the way we feel about DDJ--the magazine and its name.
Part of the history of DDJ revolves around some of the genuinely significant articles we've published over the years. (Articles like "Tiny Basic" and "Fattening Your Mac," for instance.) This month, we're continuing that tradition with what I think will be one of the more important articles we'll publish this year. Our lead feature, cowritten by DDJ s senior technical editor Kent Porter and Intel engineer Robin Kar, describes a specification for measuring real-time performance that we call the "Rhealstone." Over the past few months, Kent's been working with key people across the real-time industry--silicon vendors, software developers, and system designers -- to generate the Rhealstone. As part of this process, Kent chaired a panel that included Robin Kar, Ray Duncan (from Laboratory Microsystems Inc.), and Dan Erickson (of Digital Research Inc.) at the Real-time Programming conference where the Rhealstone was initially introduced. As Kent mentions in the article, we're now presenting it to you and asking for your ideas, questions, and comments. We'll then publish the final proposal, including code examples, in this year's June issue.
Kent is also central to another of this month's developments. For the past couple of years, Kent has been writing our "Structured Programming" column, and he's recently become known in some circles as a Modula-2 evangelist. Beginning this month, however, Kent is starting a new column, which is devoted to high-performance graphics programming.
Our new "Structured Programming" columnist is Jeff Duntemann, no doubt familiar to many of you as the former editor of Turbo Technix, a magazine that until recently was published by Borland. Turbo Technix was a first-rate magazine and Jeff deserves most of the credit for its excellence. Sad to say, Borland discontinued publication of Turbo Technix a few months ago, which made it possible for Jeff to join the DDJ family as a contributing editor and columnist. While lamenting the demise of Turbo Technix, I'm equally pleased to welcome Mike Floyd, a new technical editor for DDJ. Mike, too, comes from Turbo Technix and he's already proven to be a valuable addition to our staff.
The long and short of all this is that DDJ is continuing its commitment to publish the kind of information that, for the past 12 years, has made it the magazine for serious programmers, and it's our intent for DDJ to remain so for many years to come.
Copyright © 1989, Dr. Dobb's Journal