[erlang-questions] Final Call for Papers: ICFP 2017

[Lindsey Kuper]

                                  ICFP 2017
    The 22nd ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming
                             Oxford, United Kingdom
                           http://icfp17.sigplan.org/
                             Final Call for Papers
 
### Important dates

Submissions due:    Monday, February 27, Anywhere on Earth
                    https://icfp17.hotcrp.com
Author response:    Monday, April 17, 2017, 15:00 (UTC) -
                    Thursday, April 20, 2017, 15:00 (UTC)
Notification:       Monday, 1 May, 2017
Final copy due:     Monday, 5 June 2017
Early registration: TBA
Conference:         Monday, 4 September -
                    Wednesday, 6 September, 2017

### New this year

Those familiar with previous ICFP conferences should be aware of two
significant changes that are being introduced in 2017:

1. Papers selected for ICFP 2017 will be published as the ICFP 2017
issue of a new journal, Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages
(PACMPL), which replaces the previous ICFP conference proceedings. The
move to PACMPL will have two noticeable impacts on authors:

    * A new, two-phase selection and reviewing process that conforms to
      ACM’s journal reviewing guidelines.

    * A new, single-column format for submissions.

2. Authors of papers that are conditionally accepted in the first phase
of the reviewing process will have the option to submit materials for
Artifact Evaluation.

Further details on each of these changes are included in the following
text.

### Scope

ICFP 2017 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; type systems;
    interoperability; domain-specific languages; and relations to
    imperative, object-oriented, or logic programming.

  * *Implementation*: abstract machines; virtual machines;
    interpretation; compilation; compile-time and run-time optimization;
    garbage collection and memory management; 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.

  * *Foundations*: formal semantics; lambda calculus; rewriting; type
    theory; monads; continuations; control; state; effects; program
    verification; dependent types.

  * *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; multimedia and
    3D graphics 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.

ICFP 2017 also welcomes submissions in two separate categories ---
Functional Pearls and Experience Reports --- that must be marked as
such at the time of submission and that need not report original
research results.  Detailed guidelines on both categories are given at
the end of this call.

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

### Preparation of submissions

ICFP 2017 will employ a lightweight double-blind reviewing process, as
described below.

**Deadline**: The deadline for submissions is Monday, February 27, 2017,
Anywhere on Earth (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth>).
This deadline will be strictly enforced.

**Formatting**: (NOTE: NEW FORMAT REQUIREMENTS FOR ICFP 2017)
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 Large" template that is available
(in both LaTeX and Word formats) from
<http://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template>.

For authors using LaTeX, a lighter-weight package, including only the
essential files, is available from
<http://sigplan.org/Resources/Author/#acmart-format>; the appropriate
template for ICFP 2017 authors is in the file
`acmart-pacmpl-template.tex`.  As documented in the template,
submissions should be prepared using the `acmlarge` and `anonymous`
options.  The use of the `review` option is also strongly encouraged but
not required.  (The `review` option will add line numbers, which will
make it easier for reviewers to reference specific parts of your paper
in their comments, but should have absolutely no other effect on the
typesetting.) Details of available technical support for LaTeX-specific
questions is available at
<http://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template#h-technical-support>.

There is a limit of 24 pages for a full paper or 12 pages for an
Experience Report; in either case, the bibliography will not be counted
against these limits. These page limits have been chosen to allow
essentially the same amount of content with the new single-column format
as was possible with the two-column format used in past ICFP
conferences. Submissions that exceed the page limits or, for other
reasons, do not meet the requirements for formatting, will be summarily
rejected.

**Citations**: As part of PACMPL, ICFP 2017 papers are expected to use
author-year citations for references to other work. Author-year
citations may be used as either a noun phrase, such as "The lambda
calculus was originally conceived by Church (1932)", or a parenthetic
phrase, such as "The lambda calculus (Church 1932) was intended as a
foundation for mathematics". A useful test for correct usage it to make
sure that the text still reads correctly when the parenthesized portions
of any references are omitted. Take care with prepositions; in the first
example above, "by" is more appropriate than "in" because it allows the
text to be read correctly as a reference to the author. Sometimes,
readability may be improved by putting parenthetic citations at the end
of a clause or a sentence, such as "A foundation for mathematics was
provided by the lambda calculus (Church 1932)". In LaTeX, use
`\citet{Church-1932}` for citations as a noun phrase, "Church (1932)",
and `\citep{Church-1932}` for citations as a parenthetic phrase,
"(Church 1932)"; for details, see Sections 2.3--2.5 of the natbib
documentation (<http://ctan.org/pkg/natbib>).

**Submission**: Submissions will be accepted at
<https://icfp17.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 15:00 UTC on Monday, April 17, 2017, to read reviews and respond to
them.

**Supplementary Materials**: Authors have the option to attach
supplementary material to a submission, on the understanding that
reviewers may choose not to look at it. The material should be uploaded
at submission time, as a single pdf or a tarball, not via a URL. This
supplementary material may or may not be anonymized; if not anonymized,
it will only be revealed to reviewers 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>.

**Resubmitted Papers**: Authors who submit a revised version of a paper
that has previously been rejected by another conference have the option
to attach an annotated copy of the reviews of their previous
submission(s), explaining how they have addressed these previous reviews
in the present submission. If a reviewer identifies him/herself as a
reviewer of this previous submission and wishes to see how his/her
comments have been addressed, the program chair will communicate to this
reviewer the annotated copy of his/her previous review. Otherwise, no
reviewer will read the annotated copies of the previous reviews.

### Review Process

This section outlines the two-stage process with lightweight
double-blind reviewing that will be used to select papers for
presentation at ICFP 2017. A [list of frequently asked questions and
answers](http://icfp17.sigplan.org/track/icfp-2017-papers#Submission-and-Reviewing-FAQ)
that address common concerns is available on the conference website and
will be updated as necessary to clarify and expand on this process.

**ICFP 2017 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. At the PC
meeting, a set of papers will be conditionally accepted and all other
papers will be rejected.  Authors will be notified of these decisions on
May 1, 2017.

Authors of conditionally accepted papers will be provided with committee
reviews (just as in previous conferences) along with a set of mandatory
revisions. After five weeks (June 5, 2017), 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 five 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.

This process is intended as a refinement of the review process that has
been used in previous ICFP conferences. By incorporating a second stage,
the process will conform to ACM’s journal reviewing guidelines for
PACMPL.

**ICFP 2017 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 PC and external 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 Large format. The page limits for final versions of
  papers will be increased to ensure that authors have space to respond
  to reviewer comments and mandatory revisions.

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

* At least one author of each accepted submission will be expected to
  attend and present their paper at the conference. (ICFP welcomes all
  authors, regardless of nationality. If any author of an accepted
  submission has visa-related difficulties in travelling to the
  conference, we will make arrangements to enable remote participation,
  and not require them to attend the conference in order to present
  their talk. In such a case contact us (icfp2017@REDACTED) for
  further guidance.) The schedule for presentations will be determined
  and shared with authors after the full program has been selected.
  Presentations will be videotaped and released online if the presenter
  consents.

* We intend that the proceedings will be freely available for download
  from the ACM Digital Library in perpetuity via the OpenTOC mechanism.

* 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.

* **AUTHORS TAKE NOTE: The official publication date is the date the
  proceedings 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.**

### 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 a committee, separate from the program 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
proceedings, 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.

Further information about the motivations and expectations for Artifact
Evaluation can be found at
<http://icfp17.sigplan.org/track/icfp-2017-Artifacts>.

### Special categories of papers

In addition to research papers, 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 ICFP paper by its
title, by its length, and by the criteria used to evaluate it.

  * Both in the proceedings and in any citations, the title of each
    accepted Experience Report must begin with the words "Experience
    Report" followed by a colon. 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 accepted Experience Report 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 ICFP, but it need not be novel.

The program 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 off submitted it as a
full paper, which will be judged by the usual criteria of novelty,
originality, and relevance. The program chair will be happy to advise on
any concerns about which category to submit to.


### Organizers

General Chair: Jeremy Gibbons (University of Oxford, UK)
Program Chair: Mark Jones (Portland State University, USA)

Artifact Evaluation Chair: Ryan R. Newton (Indiana University, USA)
Industrial Relations Chair: Ryan Trinkle (Obsidian Systems LLC, USA)
Programming Contest Organiser: Sam Lindley (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Publicity and Web Chair: Lindsey Kuper (Intel Labs, USA)
Student Research Competition Chair: Ilya Sergey (University College London, UK)
Video Chair: Jose Calderon (Galois, Inc., USA)
Workshops Co-Chair: Andres Löh (Well-Typed LLP)
Workshops Co-Chair: David Christiansen (Indiana University, USA)

Program Committee:

Bob Atkey (University of Strathclyde, Scotland)
Adam Chlipala (MIT, USA)
Dominique Devriese (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Martin Erwig (Oregon State, USA)
Matthew Flatt (University of Utah, USA)
Ronald Garcia (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Kathryn Gray (University of Cambridge, England)
John Hughes (Chalmers University and Quvik, Sweden)
Chung-Kil Hur (Seoul National University, Korea)
Graham Hutton (University of Nottingham, England)
Alan Jeffrey (Mozilla Research, USA)
Ranjit Jhala (University of California, San Diego, USA)
Shin-ya Katsumata (Kyoto University, Japan)
Lindsey Kuper (Intel Labs, USA)
Dan Licata (Wesleyan University, USA)
Ben Lippmeier (Digital Asset, Australia)
Gabriel Scherer (Northeastern University, USA)
Alexandra Silva (University College London, England)
Nikhil Swamy (Microsoft Research, USA)
Sam Tobin-Hochstadt (Indiana University, USA)
Nicolas Wu (University of Bristol, England)
Beta Ziliani (CONICET and FAMAF, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina)