Salon des Refusés 2019

Salon des Refusés (“exhibition of rejects”) was an 1863 exhibition of artworks rejected from the official Paris Salon. The jury of Paris Salon required near-photographic realism and classified works according to a strict genre hierarchy. Paintings by many, later famous, modernists such as Édouard Manet were rejected and appeared in what became known as the Salon des Refusés. This workshop is the programming language research equivalent of Salon des Refusés. We provide venue for exploring new ideas and new ways of doing computer science.

Many interesting ideas about programming might struggle to find space in the modern programming language research community, often because they are difficult to evaluate using established evaluation methods (be it proofs, measurements or controlled user studies). As a result, they are often seen as “unscientific”. Rather than requiring detailed evaluation, this workshop provides a venue where interesting and thought provoking ideas can be exposed to critical evaluation. Submissions that provoke interesting discussion among the program committee members will be published together with an attributed review that presents an alternative position, develops additional context or summarizes discussion from the workshop. This means of engaging with papers enables explorations of novel programming ideas and new ways of doing computer science.

Topics of interest

The scope of the workshop is determined more by the format of submissions than by the specific area of programming language or computer science research that we are interested in. We welcome submissions in a format that makes it possible to think about programming in a new way, including, but not limited to:

• Thought experiments – we believe that thought experiments, analogies and illustrative metaphors can provide novel insights and inspire fruitful programming language ideas.
• Experimentation – we find prejudices in favour of theory, as far back as there is institutionalized science, but programming can often be seen more as experimentation than as theorizing. We welcome interesting experiments even if there is yet no overarching theory that explains why they happened.
• Paradigms – all scientific work is rooted in a scientific paradigm that frame what questions can be asked. We encourage submissions that reflect on existing paradigms or explore alternative scientific paradigms.
• Metaphors, myths and analogies – any description of formal, mathematical, quantitative or even poetical nature still represents just an analogy. We believe that fruitful ideas can be learned from less common forms of analogies as well as from the predominant, formal and mathematical ones.
• From jokes to science fiction – a story or an artistic performance may explore ideas and spark conversations that provide crucial inspiration for development of new computer science thinking.
• (Counter-)Histories – we are inspired by the idea that our field may currently be in its pre-history, and that the practices we have adopted may be completely faulty. A counter-history may report on today’s primitive notions of programming from the far future, or on the unfulfilled promise of programming’s past.
• Ironies of Software Design – the ‘best practices’ of programming are motivated by math and engineering virtues such as consistency, correctness, and efficiency. These virtues may not be apparent to other communities involved with software, or may go directly against their needs. We invite reports on the ironic consequences of virtuous programming, and the ironic successes of ‘improper’ programming.
• Dialogues – the orthodoxies of programming ought to be challenged from outside the field, from the point of view of those that are affected by or excluded from it. We invite both insiders and outsiders to submit critical dialogues on programming.

Submission format and important dates

We welcome short papers (up to 3000 words) and long papers (up to 9000 words) as well as screencasts or interactive essays. We intend to publish accepted paper on the web, but any format is welcome for the submission (authors can use the ‹Programming› paper template). We intend to consider publishing post-proceedings using the ACM SIGPLAN format (acmart format with the sigconf option), so you can use this template for your submission too.

• Deadline for submissions: January 7 2019 extended to January 21st 2019
• Notification of authors: January 23 2019 February 6th 2019
• Early registration deadline: February 25 2019
• Workshop at 2019: April 2 2019
• Workshop website here and submission link here.

You can find additional information about the program committee and papers and critiques from previous editions of the workshop here.

Accepted Papers

Call for Papers

Salon des Refusés (“exhibition of rejects”) was an 1863 exhibition of artworks rejected from the official Paris Salon. The jury of Paris Salon required near-photographic realism and classified works according to a strict genre hierarchy. Paintings by many, later famous, modernists such as Édouard Manet were rejected and appeared in what became known as the Salon des Refusés. This workshop is the programming language research equivalent of Salon des Refusés. We provide venue for exploring new ideas and new ways of doing computer science.

Many interesting ideas about programming might struggle to find space in the modern programming language research community, often because they are difficult to evaluate using established evaluation methods (be it proofs, measurements or controlled user studies). As a result, they are often seen as “unscientific”. Rather than requiring detailed evaluation, this workshop provides a venue where interesting and thought provoking ideas can be exposed to critical evaluation. Submissions that provoke interesting discussion among the program committee members will be published together with an attributed review that presents an alternative position, develops additional context or summarizes discussion from the workshop. This means of engaging with papers enables explorations of novel programming ideas and new ways of doing computer science.

Topics of interest

The scope of the workshop is determined more by the format of submissions than by the specific area of programming language or computer science research that we are interested in. We welcome submissions in a format that makes it possible to think about programming in a new way, including, but not limited to:

• Thought experiments – we believe that thought experiments, analogies and illustrative metaphors can provide novel insights and inspire fruitful programming language ideas.
• Experimentation – we find prejudices in favour of theory, as far back as there is institutionalized science, but programming can often be seen more as experimentation than as theorizing. We welcome interesting experiments even if there is yet no overarching theory that explains why they happened.
• Paradigms – all scientific work is rooted in a scientific paradigm that frame what questions can be asked. We encourage submissions that reflect on existing paradigms or explore alternative scientific paradigms.
• Metaphors, myths and analogies – any description of formal, mathematical, quantitative or even poetical nature still represents just an analogy. We believe that fruitful ideas can be learned from less common forms of analogies as well as from the predominant, formal and mathematical ones.
• From jokes to science fiction – a story or an artistic performance may explore ideas and spark conversations that provide crucial inspiration for development of new computer science thinking.
• (Counter-)Histories – we are inspired by the idea that our field may currently be in its pre-history, and that the practices we have adopted may be completely faulty. A counter-history may report on today’s primitive notions of programming from the far future, or on the unfulfilled promise of programming’s past.
• Ironies of Software Design – the ‘best practices’ of programming are motivated by math and engineering virtues such as consistency, correctness, and efficiency. These virtues may not be apparent to other communities involved with software, or may go directly against their needs. We invite reports on the ironic consequences of virtuous programming, and the ironic successes of ‘improper’ programming.
• Dialogues – the orthodoxies of programming ought to be challenged from outside the field, from the point of view of those that are affected by or excluded from it. We invite both insiders and outsiders to submit critical dialogues on programming.

Submission format and important dates

We welcome short papers (up to 3000 words) and long papers (up to 9000 words) as well as screencasts or interactive essays. We intend to publish accepted paper on the web, but any format is welcome for the submission (authors can use the ‹Programming› paper template). We intend to consider publishing post-proceedings using the ACM SIGPLAN format (acmart format with the sigconf option), so you can use this template for your submission too.

• Deadline for submissions: January 7 2019 extended to January 21st 2019
• Notification of authors: January 23 2019 February 6th 2019
• Early registration deadline: February 25 2019
• Workshop at 2019: April 2 2019
• Workshop website here and submission link here.