As a Software Engineer I constantly research new publications, various CS books and occasionally visit conferences. Recently I started to notice some people in common circles talking about ACM. And I started to wonder if it is something that I might be interested in. Their website is rather vague, so here I am. What is your personal experience with ACM or IEEE, have you joined any of them, or maybe visited worked with a local chapter?
I quit the ACM because they advocate H-1B visas without qualification.<p>The ACM advocates for people who teach CS and school but couldn't care less for the average software developer: the one concern they are always hand-wringing about is that the enrollment of CS students is boom-and-bust.<p>What they don't get is that periodically CS students hear about jobs going to India and other problems developers have because we don't have any organization that speaks for us, and decide to study something else. If the ACM listened to us and spoke for us it might solve their problem.<p>But they don't listen.<p>IEEE sticks up for working engineers (doesn't take a conclusive position on H-1B) so I think it's a better choice.