Yes, kiddies, once upon a time CACM published real research. Now it's mostly fluff, mostly not from CS departments. This change occurred around 1990 or thereabouts. At the time I had a brief dialog with Stu Zweben about this, and he said the change in focus from CS was in order to appeal to a wider audience. Stu was faculty at Ohio State, where I was a grad student, and soon thereafter he became ACM president. Around the same time a letter to the CACM forum referred to the CACM as having become P.A.M., pabulum for all members. IMHO pabulum is a reasonable description, and a sticking point is that CACM is still required for ACM membership.
With the decline of the CACM, the ACM gradually ceased to provide a general overview of computing research. Fortunately, IEEE Computer continues to fill that niche. So I maintain my ACM membership to receive Computing Reviews and out of a likely outdated notion that a computer scientist should belong to the ACM. UMBC does not reimburse me for the membership, but it is tax deductible, and there is a sister-society discount for belonging to both the ACM and the IEEE-CS. Still I do not get much for my membership dollar from the ACM.
I will have to verify that it is still not possible to belong to the ACM and yet not receive CACM, and also to see if I can get Computing Surveys at a reasonable price (or electronically gratis as UMBC faculty) before making my final decision.
