ACM Computing Classification System
The ACM Computing Classification System is a subject classification system for computer science devised by the Association for Computing Machinery. The system is comparable to the Mathematics Subject Classification in scope, aims and structure, being used by the various ACM journals to organise subjects by area.
History
The system has gone through six revisions, the first version being published in 1964, and revised versions appearing in 1982, 1983, 1987, 1991, and the now current version in 1998.
Structure
The ACM Computing Classification System is hierarchically structured in four levels: three outer levels, coded by capital letters and numbers, and an uncoded fourth level of subject descriptors. Thus, for example, one branch of the hierarchy contains
- I. Computing Methodologies, which contains:
- I.2 Artificial Intelligence, which contains:
- I.2.4 Knowledge representation formalisms and methods, which contains:
- I.2 Artificial Intelligence, which contains:
Each top-level category has two standard subcategories: "general", coded with a "0", and "miscellaneous", coded with a "m". For instance, I.0 denotes the "general" subcategory of Computing Methodologies, while I.m denotes its miscellaneous subcategory. Several subtopics are listed as uncoded subject descriptors in these standard subcategories.
| control structures and microprogramming, arithmetic and logic structures, memory structures, input/output and data communications, register-transfer-level implementation, logic design, integrated circuits, and performance and reliability. |
|---|
also covers computer applications, but with a focus more on the different application areas and less on the different styles of computation one does in each of those areas. Its subtopics are administrative data processing, physical sciences and engineering, life and medical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, arts and humanities, computer-aided engineering, and computers in other systems.