[TYPES/announce] Call for Papers: OBT 2013

[Ranjit Jhala]

Off the Beaten Track: New Frontiers for Programming Languages Research
======================================================================

                 http://goto.ucsd.edu/~rjhala/OBT2013/

                (Co-located With POPL 2013: Rome, Italy)


Important Dates
---------------

* Paper Submission  :  Nov 5, 2012          (Monday)
* Notification      :  Dec 3, 2012          (Monday)
* Workshop          :  Jan 26, 2013         (Saturday)

Background
----------

Programming language researchers have the principles, tools, algorithms and
abstractions to solve all kinds of problems, in all areas of computer
science. However, identifying and evaluating new problems, particularly
those that lie outside the typical core PL problems we all know and love,
can be a significant challenge. Hence, the goal of this workshop is to
identify and discuss problems that do not often show up in our top
conferences, but where programming language researchers can make a
substantial impact. The hope is that by holding such a forum and
associating it directly with a top conference like POPL, we can slowly
start to increase the diversity of problems that are studied by PL
researchers and that by doing so we will increase the impact that our
community has on the world.

While many workshops associated with POPL have become more like
mini-conferences themselves, this is not our goal. Instead, the workshop 
will be informal and structured to encourage discussion. It will also be
centered around problems and problem areas as opposed to fully-formed solutions.

Topics
------

A good submission is one that outlines a new problem or an interesting,
underrepresented problem domain. Good submissions may also remind the PL
community of problems that were once in vogue but have not recently been
seen in top PL conferences. Good submissions do not need to propose
complete or even partial solutions, though there should be some reason to
believe that programming languages researchers have the tools necessary to
search for solutions in the area at hand. Submissions that seem likely to
stimulate discussion about the direction of programming language research
are encouraged. Possible topics include any of the following.

+ Biology, chemistry, or other natural sciences

+ Art, music, graphics and animation

+ Networking, cloud computing, systems programming

+ Linguistics

+ Economics, law, politics or other social sciences

+ Web programming, social computing

+ Algorithms and complexity

+ Mathematics, statistics

+ Machine learning or artificial intelligence

+ Education

+ Unusual compilers; underrepresented programming languages

+ **Surprise us!**

We certainly hope to see submissions on topics not mentioned above. The
goal of the workshop is to be inclusive, not exclusive. Submissions are
evaluated on the basis of creativity, novelty, clarity, possible impact and
potential for stimulating discussion. Authors concerned about the 
appropriateness of a topic are strongly encouraged to consult the 
Program Chair prior to submission.


Submission Information
----------------------

There are two kinds of submissions. In either case, authors should not
assume that reviewers will be experts in the particular area of the
submission -- indeed, they will most likely *not* be. Hence, all
submissions should be accessible to a wide range of PL researchers.

All submissions should be in PDF in at least 10pt font, printable on US
Letter paper.  Authors are free to include links to multimedia content such
as youtube videos or online demos. Reviewers may or may not view linked
documents (it is up to authors to convince them to do so in their
submission.

+ **Submissions for 5-minute talks:** Authors will submit a **1-page** 
PDF document. 5-minute talks will be followed by 5-15 minutes of discussion.

+ **Submissions for longer talks:**  Authors will submit at most a
**2-page** PDF document. Put the words *"Full Presentation"* in the title 
of your submission if you would like a longer talk.  
By default, we will assume a short, 5-minute presentation
if the title does not contain these words and is 1 PDF page or less.
Longer talks may be up to 1/2 an hour in length. The length will depend on
the submissions received and how the program committee decides to assemble
the program.  Longer talks will be followed by 5-15 minutes of discussion.

Submission will be handled through EasyChair. 

    http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=obt2013

Organizers
----------

**General Chair** 

David Walker, Princeton Univ.

**Program Chair**

Ranjit Jhala, Univ. of California, San Diego <obt2013 at easychair.org>

**Program Committee**

* Emery Berger, *Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst* 
* Kathleen Fisher, *Tufts Univ.*
* Kunle Olokutun, *Stanford Univ.*
* Kostis Sagonas, *Natl. Tech. Univ. Athens*
* Peter Thiemann, *Univ. Freiburg* 
* Dimitrios Vytiniotis, *Microsoft Research*