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