[TYPES/announce] Call for Papers: PACMPL issue ICFP 2021

[Sam Tobin-Hochstadt]

               PACMPL Volume 5, Issue ICFP 2021
                           Call for Papers

           Accepted papers to be invited for presentation at
The 26th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming
                            To Be Held Virtualy
                      http://icfp21.sigplan.org/

### Important dates

Submissions due:    2 March 2021 (Tuesday) Anywhere on Earth
                   https://icfp21.hotcrp.com
Author response:    20 April (Tuesday) - 23 April (Friday) 17:00 UTC
Notification:       7 May (Friday)
Final copy due:     30 June (Wednesday)
Conference:         22 August (Sunday) - 27 August (Friday)

### About PACMPL

Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages (PACMPL
<https://pacmpl.acm.org/>) is a Gold Open Access journal publishing
research on all aspects of programming languages, from design to
implementation and from mathematical formalisms to empirical
studies. Each issue of the journal is devoted to a particular subject
area within programming languages and will be announced through
publicized Calls for Papers, like this one.

### Scope

[PACMPL](https://pacmpl.acm.org/) issue ICFP 2021 seeks original
papers on the art and science of functional programming. Submissions
are invited on all topics from principles to practice, from
foundations to features, and from abstraction to application. The
scope includes all languages that encourage functional programming,
including both purely applicative and imperative languages, as well as
languages with objects, concurrency, or parallelism. Topics of
interest include (but are not limited to):

* Language Design: concurrency, parallelism, and distribution;
   modules; components and composition; metaprogramming; macros;
   pattern matching; type systems; type inference; dependent types;
   session types; gradual typing; refinement types; interoperability;
   domain-specific languages; imperative programming; object-oriented
   programming; logic programming; probabilistic programming;
   reactive programming; generic programming; bidirectional
   programming.

* Implementation: abstract machines; virtual machines;
   interpretation; compilation; compile-time and run-time
   optimization; garbage collection and memory management; runtime
   systems; multi-threading; exploiting parallel hardware; interfaces
   to foreign functions, services, components, or low-level machine
   resources.

* Software-Development Techniques: algorithms and data structures;
   design patterns; specification; verification; validation; proof
   assistants; debugging; testing; tracing; profiling; build systems;
   program synthesis.

* Foundations: formal semantics; lambda calculus; program
   equivalence; rewriting; type theory; logic; category theory;
   monads; continuations; control; state; effects; names and binding;
   program verification.

* Analysis and Transformation: control flow; data flow; abstract
   interpretation; partial evaluation; program calculation.

* Applications: symbolic computing; formal-methods tools; artificial
   intelligence; systems programming; distributed systems and web
   programming; hardware design; databases; XML processing;
   scientific and numerical computing; graphical user interfaces;
   graphics and multimedia; GPU programming; scripting; system
   administration; security.

* Education: teaching introductory programming; parallel
   programming; mathematical proof; algebra.

Submissions will be evaluated according to their relevance,
correctness, significance, originality, and clarity. Each submission
should explain its contributions in both general and technical terms,
clearly identifying what has been accomplished, explaining why it is
significant, and comparing it with previous work. The technical
content should be accessible to a broad audience.

PACMPL issue ICFP 2021 also welcomes submissions in two separate
categories — Functional Pearls and Experience Reports — that must be
marked as such when submitted and that need not report original
research results. Detailed guidelines on both categories are given at
the end of this call.

Please contact the associate editor if you have questions or are
concerned about the appropriateness of a topic.


### Preparation of submissions

**Deadline**: The deadline for submissions is **Tuesday, March 2, 2021**,
Anywhere on Earth (<https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe>).
This deadline will be strictly enforced.

**Formatting**: Submissions must be in PDF format, printable in black
and white on US Letter sized paper, and interpretable by common PDF
tools. All submissions must adhere to the "ACM Small" template that is
available (in both LaTeX and Word formats) from
<https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions>. 

There is a limit of **25 pages for a full paper or Functional Pearl**
and **12 pages for an Experience Report**; in either case, the
bibliography will not be counted against these limits. Submissions
that exceed the page limits or, for other reasons, do not meet the
requirements for formatting, will be summarily rejected. Supplementary
material can and should be **separately** submitted (see below).

See also PACMPL's Information and Guidelines for Authors at
<https://pacmpl.acm.org/authors.cfm>.

**Submission**: Submissions will be accepted at <https://icfp21.hotcrp.com/>

Improved versions of a paper may be submitted at any point before the
submission deadline using the same web interface.

**Author Response Period**: Authors will have a 72-hour period,
starting at 17:00 UTC on **Tuesday, April 20, 2021**, to read reviews
and respond to them.

**Supplementary Material**: Authors have the option to attach
supplementary material to a submission, on the understanding that
reviewers may choose not to look at it. This supplementary material
should **not** be submitted as part of the main document; instead, it
should be uploaded as a **separate** PDF document or tarball.

Supplementary material should be uploaded **at submission time**, not
by providing a URL in the paper that points to an external repository.

Authors are free to upload both anonymized and non-anonymized
supplementary material. Anonymized supplementary material will be
visible to reviewers immediately; non-anonymized supplementary
material will be revealed to reviewers only after they have submitted
their review of the paper and learned the identity of the author(s).

**Authorship Policies**: All submissions are expected to comply with
the ACM Policies for Authorship that are detailed at
<https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/information-for-authors>.

**Republication Policies**: Each submission must adhere to SIGPLAN's
republication policy, as explained on the web at
<http://www.sigplan.org/Resources/Policies/Republication>.

### Review Process

This section outlines the two-stage process with lightweight
double-blind reviewing that will be used to select papers for PACMPL
issue ICFP 2021.  We anticipate that there will be a need to clarify
and expand on this process, and we will maintain a list of frequently
asked questions and answers on the PACMPL issue website to address
common concerns.

**PACMPL issue ICFP 2021 will employ a two-stage review process.** The
 first stage in the review process will assess submitted papers using
 the criteria stated above and will allow for feedback and input on
 initial reviews through the author response period mentioned
 previously. As a result of the review process, a set of papers will be
 conditionally accepted and all other papers will be rejected.
 Authors will be notified of these decisions on **May 7, 2021**.

Authors of conditionally accepted papers will be provided with
committee reviews along with a set of mandatory revisions. After four
weeks (June 4, 2021), the authors will provide a second
submission. The second and final reviewing phase assesses whether the
mandatory revisions have been adequately addressed by the authors and
thereby determines the final accept/reject status of the paper. The
intent and expectation is that the mandatory revisions can be
addressed within four weeks and hence that conditionally accepted
papers will in general be accepted in the second phase.

The second submission should clearly identify how the mandatory
revisions were addressed. To that end, the second submission must be
accompanied by a cover letter mapping each mandatory revision request
to specific parts of the paper. The cover letter will facilitate a
quick second review, allowing for confirmation of final acceptance
within two weeks. Conversely, the absence of a cover letter will be
grounds for the paper’s rejection.

**PACMPL issue ICFP 2021 will employ a lightweight double-blind
 reviewing process.** To facilitate this, submitted papers must
 adhere to two rules:

 1. **author names and institutions must be omitted**, and
 2. **references to authors' own related work should be in the third
 person** (e.g., not "We build on our previous work ..." but rather
 "We build on the work of ...").

The purpose of this process is to help the reviewers come to an
initial judgement about the paper without bias, not to make it
impossible for them to discover the authors if they were to
try. Nothing should be done in the name of anonymity that weakens the
submission or makes the job of reviewing the paper more difficult
(e.g., important background references should not be omitted or
anonymized). In addition, authors should feel free to disseminate
their ideas or draft versions of their paper as they normally
would. For instance, authors may post drafts of their papers on the
web or give talks on their research ideas.

### Information for Authors of Accepted Papers

* As a condition of acceptance, final versions of all papers must
 adhere to the new ACM Small format. The page limit for the final
 versions of papers will be increased by two pages to help authors
 respond to reviewer comments and mandatory revisions: **27 pages
 plus bibliography for a regular paper or Functional Pearl, 14 pages
 plus bibliography for an Experience Report**.

* Authors of accepted submissions will be required to agree to one of
 the three ACM licensing options: open access on payment of a fee
 (**recommended**, and SIGPLAN can cover the cost as described next);
 copyright transfer to ACM; or retaining copyright but granting ACM
 exclusive publication rights.  Further information about ACM author
 rights is available from <http://authors.acm.org>.

* PACMPL is a Gold Open Access journal, and authors are encouraged to
  publish their work under a CC-BY license. Gold Open Access
  guarantees permanent free online access to the definitive version in
  the ACM Digital Library, and the recommended CC-BY option also
  allows anyone to copy and distribute the work with attribution.
  Gold Open Access has been made possible by generous funding through
  ACM SIGPLAN, which will cover all open access costs in the event
  authors cannot. Authors who can cover the costs may do so by paying
  an Article Processing Charge (APC). PACMPL, SIGPLAN, and ACM
  Headquarters are committed to exploring routes to making Gold Open
  Access publication both affordable and sustainable.

* ACM offers authors a range of copyright options, one of which is
 Creative Commons CC-BY publication; this is the option recommended
 by the PACMPL editorial board. A reasoned argument in favour of this
 option can be found in the article [Why
 CC-BY?](https://oaspa.org/why-cc-by/) published by OASPA, the Open
 Access Scholarly Publishers Association.

* ACM Author-Izer is a unique service that enables ACM authors to
 generate and post links on either their home page or institutional
 repository for visitors to download the definitive version of their
 articles from the ACM Digital Library at no charge. Downloads
 through Author-Izer links are captured in official ACM statistics,
 improving the accuracy of usage and impact
 measurements. Consistently linking to the definitive version of an
 ACM article should reduce user confusion over article
 versioning. After an article has been published and assigned to the
 appropriate ACM Author Profile pages, authors should visit
 <http://www.acm.org/publications/acm-author-izer-service> to learn
 how to create links for free downloads from the ACM DL.

* The official publication date is the date the papers are made
 available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to *two
 weeks prior* to the first day of the conference. The official
 publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related
 to published work.

* Authors of each accepted submission are invited to attend and be
 available for the presentation of that paper at the conference. The
 schedule for presentations will be determined and shared with authors
 after the full program has been selected.



### Artifact Evaluation

Authors of papers that are conditionally accepted in the first phase
of the review process will be encouraged (but not required) to submit
supporting materials for Artifact Evaluation. These items will then be
reviewed by an Artifact Evaluation Committee, separate from the paper
Review Committee, whose task is to assess how the artifacts support
the work described in the associated paper. Papers that go through the
Artifact Evaluation process successfully will receive a seal of
approval printed on the papers themselves. Authors of accepted papers
will be encouraged to make the supporting materials publicly available
upon publication of the papers, for example, by including them as
"source materials" in the ACM Digital Library.  An additional seal
will mark papers whose artifacts are made available, as outlined in
the ACM guidelines for artifact badging.

Participation in Artifact Evaluation is voluntary and will not
influence the final decision regarding paper acceptance.

### Special categories of papers

In addition to research papers, PACMPL issue ICFP solicits two kinds
of papers that do not require original research contributions:
Functional Pearls, which are full papers, and Experience Reports,
which are limited to half the length of a full paper. Authors
submitting such papers should consider the following guidelines.

#### Functional Pearls

A Functional Pearl is an elegant essay about something related to
functional programming. Examples include, but are not limited to:

 * a new and thought-provoking way of looking at an old idea

 * an instructive example of program calculation or proof

 * a nifty presentation of an old or new data structure

 * an interesting application of functional programming techniques

 * a novel use or exposition of functional programming in the classroom

While pearls often demonstrate an idea through the development of a
short program, there is no requirement or expectation that they do
so. Thus, they encompass the notions of theoretical and educational
pearls.

Functional Pearls are valued as highly and judged as rigorously as
ordinary papers, but using somewhat different criteria. In particular,
a pearl is not required to report original research, but, it should be
concise, instructive, and entertaining. A pearl is likely to be
rejected if its readers get bored, if the material gets too
complicated, if too much specialized knowledge is needed, or if the
writing is inelegant. The key to writing a good pearl is polishing.

A submission that is intended to be treated as a pearl must be marked
as such on the submission web page, and should contain the words
"Functional Pearl" somewhere in its title or subtitle. These steps
will alert reviewers to use the appropriate evaluation
criteria. Pearls will be combined with ordinary papers, however, for
the purpose of computing the conference's acceptance rate.

#### Experience Reports

The purpose of an Experience Report is to help create a body of
published, refereed, citable evidence that functional programming
really works -- or to describe what obstacles prevent it from
working.

Possible topics for an Experience Report include, but are not limited to:

 * insights gained from real-world projects using functional programming

 * comparison of functional programming with conventional programming
   in the context of an industrial project or a university curriculum

 * project-management, business, or legal issues encountered when
   using functional programming in a real-world project

 * curricular issues encountered when using functional programming in
   education

 * real-world constraints that created special challenges for an
   implementation of a functional language or for functional
   programming in general

An Experience Report is distinguished from a normal PACMPL issue ICFP
paper by its title, by its length, and by the criteria used to
evaluate it.

 * Both in the papers and in any citations, the title of each
   accepted Experience Report must end with the words "(Experience
   Report)" in parentheses. The acceptance rate for Experience
   Reports will be computed and reported separately from the rate for
   ordinary papers.

 * Experience Report submissions can be at most 12 pages long,
   excluding bibliography.

 * Each Experience Report accepted to the PACMPL issue will be
   presented at the conference, but depending on the number of
   Experience Reports and regular papers accepted, authors of
   Experience reports may be asked to give shorter talks.

 * Because the purpose of Experience Reports is to enable our
   community to accumulate a body of evidence about the efficacy of
   functional programming, an acceptable Experience Report need not
   add to the body of knowledge of the functional-programming
   community by presenting novel results or conclusions. It is
   sufficient if the Report states a clear thesis and provides
   supporting evidence. The thesis must be relevant to the PACMPL
   issue, but it need not be novel.

The review committee will accept or reject Experience Reports based on
whether they judge the evidence to be convincing. Anecdotal evidence
will be acceptable provided it is well argued and the author explains
what efforts were made to gather as much evidence as
possible. Typically, more convincing evidence is obtained from papers
which show how functional programming was used than from papers which
only say that functional programming was used. The most convincing
evidence often includes comparisons of situations before and after the
introduction or discontinuation of functional programming. Evidence
drawn from a single person's experience may be sufficient, but more
weight will be given to evidence drawn from the experience of groups
of people.

An Experience Report should be short and to the point: it should make
a claim about how well functional programming worked on a particular
project and why, and produce evidence to substantiate this claim. If
functional programming worked in this case in the same ways it has
worked for others, the paper need only summarize the results;
the main part of the paper should discuss how well it worked and in
what context. Most readers will not want to know all the details of
the project and its implementation, but the paper should characterize
the project and its context well enough so that readers can judge to
what degree this experience is relevant to their own projects. The
paper should take care to highlight any unusual aspects of the
project. Specifics about the project are more valuable than
generalities about functional programming; for example, it is more
valuable to say that the team delivered its software a month ahead of
schedule than it is to say that functional programming made the team
more productive.

If the paper not only describes experience but also presents new
technical results, or if the experience refutes cherished beliefs of
the functional-programming community, it may be better to submit it as
a full paper, which will be judged by the usual criteria of novelty,
originality, and relevance. The associate editor will be happy to
advise on any concerns about which category to submit to.



### ICFP Organizers

General Chair: Sukyoung Ryu (KAIST, South Korea)

Accessibility Co-Chairs: Lindsey Kuper (UC Santa Cruz, USA), Kathrin
Stark (Princeton University, USA)
Artifact Evaluation Co-Chairs: Gabriel Scherer (INRIA Saclay, France),
Brent Yorgey (Hendrix College, USA)
Industrial Relations Co-Chairs: Alan Jeffrey (Roblox, USA),
Simon Marlow (Facebook, England)
Programming Contest Co-Organisers: Alex Lang, Jasper Van der Jeugt
(Fugue, Switzerland)
Publicity and Web Chair: Sam Tobin-Hochstadt (Indiana University, USA)
Student Research Competition Chair: Anders Miltner (University of
Texas, USA)
Student Volunteer Co-Chairs: Lily Bryant (University of British
Columbia, Canada), Jaemin Hong (KAIST, South Korea), Hanneli Tavante
(McGill University, Canada)
Video Co-Chairs: Leif Andersen (Northeastern University, USA),
Benjamin Chung (Northeastern University, USA)
Workshops Co-Chairs: Leonidas Lampropoulos (University of Maryland, USA),
Zoe Paraskevopoulou (Princeton University, USA)



### PACMPL Volume 5, Issue ICFP 2021

Associate Editor: Ronald Garcia, (University of British Columbia, Canada)

Review Committee:

Zena Ariola (University of Oregon, USA)
Stephanie Balzer (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
Matteo Cimini (UMass Lowell, USA)
Youyou Cong (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
Harley Eades (University of Augusta, USA)
Andrew Gordon (Microsoft Research & University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
Benjamin Greenman (Brown University, USA)
Arjun Guha (Northeastern University, USA)
Jurriaan Hage (Utrecht, The Netherlands)
Favonia  (University of Minnesota, USA)
Suresh Jagannathan (Purdue University, USA)
Patricia Johann (Appalachian State University, USA)
Ralf Jung (Max Planck Institute, Germany)
Ekaterina Komendantskaya (Heriot-Watt, Scotland)
Leonidas Lampropoulos (University of Maryland, USA)
Kazutaka Matsuda (Tohoku University, Japan)
Akimasa Morihata (Univeristy of Tokyo, Japan)
Stefan Muller (Illinois Institute of Technology, USA)
Max New (Wesleyan University, USA)
Rishiyur Nikhil (Bluespec , USA)
Cyrus Omar (University of Michigan, USA)
Brigitte Pientka (McGill University, Canada)
Norman Ramsey (Tufts University, USA)
Christine Rizkallah (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Taro Sekiyama (National Institute for Informatics, Japan)
Eijiro Sumii (Tohoku University, Japan)
Amin Timany (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Mitchell Wand (Northeastern University, USA)
Steve Zdancewic (University of Pennsylvania, USA)