[TYPES/announce] Onward! 2025 Joint Call for Papers and Essays

[Gordon,Colin]

# Onward! 2025 Joint Call for Papers and Essays

The ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on New Ideas in Programming and Reflections on Software (Onward!) is a forum for new ideas and paradigms for every aspect of programming. Welcomed are both papers and essays (in separate tracks) that propose and argue for new approaches to the creation of software as well as reflections on technology and ideas bearing on programming broadly construed.

## Important Dates (Both Tracks)

- Submission: April 24, 2025
- First round notification: June 6, 2025
- Revision deadline: July 17, 2025
- Final Notification: August 11, 2025
- Camera-Ready: August 25, 2025

## Onward! 2025 Papers

Onward! Papers is looking for grand visions and new paradigms that could make a big difference in how we will one day build software. But it is not looking for research-as-usual papers—conferences like OOPSLA are the place for that. Those conferences require rigorous validation such as theorems or empirical experiments, which are necessary for scientific progress, but which typically preclude discussion of early-stage ideas. Onward! papers must also supply some degree of validation because mere speculation is not a good basis for progress. However, Onward! accepts less rigorous methods of validation such as compelling arguments, exploratory implementations, and substantial examples. The use of worked-out examples to support new ideas is strongly encouraged.

The full call for papers is available at https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://2025.splashcon.org/track/splash-2025-Onward-papers*Call-for-Papers__;Iw!!IBzWLUs!UTOtDuzTVxSktRwrVuOZuIHUW5TuJtg17zxnNKvyGE4DrscRue-srr1Ma-SRWFzHO7fKquDeGpTXkYF1BhyEWD-9d_qPfKQ$ 

## Onward! 2025 Essays

Onward! Essays is looking for clear and compelling pieces of writing about topics important to the software community. An essay can be long or short.

An essay can be an exploration of the topic and its impact, or a story about the circumstances of its creation; it can present a personal view of what is, explore a terrain, or lead the reader in an act of discovery; it can be a philosophical digression or a deep analysis. It can describe a personal journey, perhaps the one the author took to reach an understanding of the topic. The subject area—software, programming, and programming languages—should be interpreted broadly and can include the relationship of software to human endeavors, or its philosophical, sociological, psychological, historical, or anthropological underpinnings.

Onward! Essays invites proficient software developers, experienced academics, and courageous graduate students to submit essays on the current state and possible futures of software development technology and practices, as well as presentations of ideas that could change the realm of software development. Constructive criticism is welcome and authors who are dissatisfied—or satisfied!—with the state of our art are encouraged to share insights about how to reform—or improve—software development, perhaps by presenting detailed examples of a new approach, demonstrating concrete benefits and potential risks.

Onward! Essays is not looking for research-as-usual papers—an essay doesn’t contain definitive validation; however, regardless of its form or topic, the essay must have “substance.” An essay may or may not have a conclusion, but it must provide some insight or compelling argument, either directly or indirectly stated; the reader should be left—perhaps after some reflection—in no doubt about the claimed insight or argument. The key characteristic of a successful essay is that it shows a keen mind coming to grips with a tough or intriguing problem in such a way that, as Virginia Woolf wrote, “it explains much and tells much.”

The full call for papers is available at https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://2025.splashcon.org/track/splash-2025-Onward-Essays*Call-for-Essays__;Iw!!IBzWLUs!UTOtDuzTVxSktRwrVuOZuIHUW5TuJtg17zxnNKvyGE4DrscRue-srr1Ma-SRWFzHO7fKquDeGpTXkYF1BhyEWD-911q30jA$ 

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