BTH@IBM.COM (Brent Hailpern) (11/06/90)
The Second ACM SIGPLAN
History of Programming Languages Conference (HOPL-II)
Boston, Massachusetts, Spring 1993
In 1978, the first History of Programming Languages Conference covered
the development and evolution of 13 specific computer programming
languages, the people who participated in that work, and the context in
which it was undertaken.
Of particular interest was the combined presentation of both technical
and administrative factors that influenced the development of these
selected languages. That first conference included invited papers on
the early giants of our field: ALGOL 60, APL, APT, BASIC, COBOL,
FORTRAN, GPSS, JOSS, JOVIAL, LISP, PL/I, SIMULA, and SNOBOL. The
original papers were published in ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Vol. 13, No. 8,
Aug. 1978. A book containing the papers, transcripts of the
presentations, and much additional material was published in the ACM
Monograph Series by Academic Press with the title ``History of
Programming Languages'', (Richard L. Wexelblat, Editor, 1981).
Topics for HOPL-II
During the intervening years, much has happened in this field, and the
HOPL-II Conference will address the history of those significant
developments. Papers are solicited in each of the categories
established for HOPL-II:
- Histories of specific languages -- the motivation, context, early
development, evolution, people, and technical issues surrounding
significant programming languages
- Histories of language features and concepts -- the development,
introduction, and use of programming language idioms and constructs
(e.g., concurrency control, encapsulation)
- Histories of classes of languages -- issues underlying sets of
languages that are designed around a common paradigm (e.g.,
functional, object-oriented, logic programming) or an application
domain (e.g., civil engineering, graphics, simulation)
As with the first HOPL Conference, HOPL-II is intended to contribute to
the historical record. To meet this goal, the Program Committee will
work closely with prospective authors to help insure that the papers are
of high quality.
Criteria for Selection
The Program Committee intends to apply the following criteria in
selecting papers; they are necessary, but not sufficient, for the paper
to be of historical interest. The word ``use'' applies to people other
than the developer(s). A submission must satisfy both criteria within
one category.
- Early History of Specific Languages:
(1) the language (or a derivative) has had significant influence on
the theory or practice of computing
(2) preliminary ideas about the language were documented by 1982,
and the language was in use or being taught by 1985
- Evolution of Languages:
(1) the language meets the criteria for ``Early History of Specific
Languages''
(2) there has been significant evolution of the language, as
manifested by different versions of the language (e.g.,
derivatives, dialects, subsets, extensions) or by standards adopted
either by different organizations or at different times
- Language Features and Concepts:
(1) the feature or concept (e.g., concurrency control,
encapsulation) has had significant influence on the theory or
practice of computing
(2) preliminary ideas about the feature or concept were documented
by 1982
- Classes of Languages:
(1a) for application-oriented languages, a set of languages in a
specific application area must be recognizable as significant to
people involved in that class of application (e.g., civil
engineering, graphics, machine tool control, simulation)
(1b) for paradigm-oriented languages, a paradigm defining a class
of languages must be clearly regarded as significant (e.g.,
functional, object-oriented, logic programming)
(2) preliminary ideas about a language in this class were
documented by 1982, and a language in this class was in use or
being taught by 1985
There is much to be learned from ``instructive failures''. Therefore,
prospective authors are also encouraged to document concepts or features
that may not have achieved widespread use, but are of historical
interest.
Submission Procedures
Responses to this call for papers will be managed by the HOPL-II
``submission coordinator'', whose name and address appear below.
Authors should request a set of detailed Author Guidelines from the
submission coordinator and refer to those guidelines before preparing
papers.
After reviewing the detailed Author Guidelines, prospective authors are
requested to notify the submission coordinator of the intent to submit a
paper and to indicate the working topic of the paper. Because the
conference deals with history and authors are encouraged to provide
details and to strive for completeness, there is no a priori bound on
the length of submitted papers. Authors should submit 8 copies of each
paper to the submission coordinator. Submissions must be received by
June 30, 1991, and they should include, on the first page, a return
postal address, an electronic mail address (if available), a telephone
number, and a fax number (if available). As is usual for
SIGPLAN-sponsored conferences, papers pending acceptance at any other
conference are not eligible for HOPL-II. If a closely related paper has
been submitted to a journal, the submission coordinator must be
notified.
Papers will be refereed in two phases. Authors will be notified of
preliminary decisions on their papers by November 30, 1991. Authors
receiving preliminary acceptance can expect to be asked to revise their
papers in accordance with the reviews that accompany those responses.
Revised papers must be received by February 29, 1992. Final acceptances
or rejections will be sent by June 30, 1992. Authors of accepted papers
will be required to sign ACM copyright release forms. Camera-ready
copies of the accepted papers must be received by September 30, 1992.
Proceedings will be distributed at the conference and subsequently will
be included in a book from ACM Press containing additional material from
the conference.
Submission Coordinator:
Richard L. Wexelblat
Attn: HOPL-II
IDA/CSED
1801 N. Beauregard St.
Alexandria, VA 22311
(703)845-6601
rlw@ida.org
.........................................................................
Conference Chair: Program Chair:
J.A.N. Lee Jean E. Sammet
CIT/IIT Programming Language Consultant
133 McBryde Hall P. O. Box 30038
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0119 Bethesda, MD 20824
(703)231-5780 (301)907-0233
janlee@vtcs1.bitnet sammet@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu
Program Committee:
Ben Brosgol ALSYS
Jacques Cohen Brandeis University
Michael B. Feldman The George Washington University
Bernard A. Galler University of Michigan
Helen M. Gigley NSF
Brent T. Hailpern IBM
Randy Hudson Intermetrics
Michael S. Mahoney Princeton University
Robert F. Rosin Enhanced Service Providers, Inc.
Barbara Ryder Rutgers University
Jean E. Sammet Programming Language Consultant
Richard L. Wexelblat IDA