Onward! EssaysSPLASH 2024
Please take a look at this year’s essays and papers.
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.
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Wed 23 OctDisplayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change
12:20 - 13:40 | |||
12:20 80mLunch | Lunch Catering |
13:40 - 15:20 | |||
13:40 40mTalk | A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design Onward! Essays | ||
14:30 40mTalk | Dialogues on Natural Code Onward! Essays |
17:00 - 17:40 | Onward! EssaysOnward! Essays at Pacific Please stay seated :) Follows directly after the Onward! Papers session before. | ||
17:00 40mTalk | Discovering Your Software Umwelt Onward! Essays Rebecca Wirfs-Brock Wirfs-Brock Associates, Allen Wirfs-Brock Wirfs-Brock Associates, Jordan Wirfs-Brock Whitman College |
17:40 - 19:40 | |||
17:40 2hDinner | Dinner Catering |
Thu 24 OctDisplayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change
10:40 - 12:20 | |||
10:40 40mTalk | tl;dr: Chill, y’all – AI will not devour SE Onward! Essays | ||
11:30 40mTalk | A New Cognitive Perspective on Simplicity in System and Product Design Onward! Essays Stefan Lesser None |
12:20 - 13:40 | |||
12:20 80mLunch | Lunch Catering |
13:40 - 15:20 | |||
13:40 40mTalk | Use Site Checking Considered Harmful Onward! Essays | ||
14:30 40mTalk | (Programs), Proofs and Refutations (and Tests and Mutants) Onward! Essays Alex Groce Northern Arizona University |
Fri 25 OctDisplayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change
11:00 - 12:20 | |||
11:00 40mTalk | Redressing the balance: a yin-yang perspective on information technologyRemote Onward! Essays Konrad Hinsen CNRS | ||
11:40 40mTalk | Programming Languages for the Future of Design ComputationRemote Onward! Essays Robert Aish Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Al Fisher Buro Happold, Dominic Orchard University of Kent; University of Cambridge, Jay Torry University of Cambridge Pre-print |
12:20 - 13:50 | |||
12:20 90mLunch | Awards Lunch Catering |
16:00 - 17:40 | |||
16:00 40mTalk | The Linguistics of Programming Onward! Essays Colin Gordon Drexel University | ||
16:45 40mTalk | The Hidden Program State Hurts Everyone Onward! Essays | ||
17:25 15mTalk | Onward! Conclusion Onward! Essays |
Accepted Essays
Title | |
---|---|
A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design Onward! Essays | |
A New Cognitive Perspective on Simplicity in System and Product Design Onward! Essays | |
Dialogues on Natural Code Onward! Essays | |
Discovering Your Software Umwelt Onward! Essays | |
Programming Languages for the Future of Design ComputationRemote Onward! Essays Pre-print | |
(Programs), Proofs and Refutations (and Tests and Mutants) Onward! Essays | |
Redressing the balance: a yin-yang perspective on information technologyRemote Onward! Essays | |
The Hidden Program State Hurts Everyone Onward! Essays | |
The Linguistics of Programming Onward! Essays | |
tl;dr: Chill, y’all – AI will not devour SE Onward! Essays | |
Use Site Checking Considered Harmful Onward! Essays |
Call for Essays
Essays can be submitted via the Onward! 2024 Essays submissions page.
Scope
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.”
Long essays are fine, but essayists are encouraged to consider the virtues of short essays that deliver their points sharply and with precision. Essays as short as a single page are welcome at Onward! Essays. Short essays will be accorded the same status at Onward! Essays as longer ones.
Essays Selection
Onward! essays are peer-reviewed in a single-blind manner. Accepted essays will appear in the Onward! Proceedings in the ACM Digital Library. Submissions will be judged on the potential impact of the ideas and the quality of the presentation.
Here is an overview of previously accepted essays from the last five years:
- Onward! 2023 Essays
- Onward! 2022 Essays
- Onward! 2021 Essays
- Onward! 2020 Essays
- Onward! 2019 Essays
- …more essays…
The Onward! Essays track follows a two-phase review process. This enables us to welcome contributions that contain promising material and have the potential to meet the conference’s standards, but which may fall short of this in their initial form. At the end of the first round, all essays will be either accepted normally, subject to revisions, or rejected outright. The authors of essays in the second category will get around one month to complete the requested revisions, at which point the original reviewers will decide on final acceptance or rejection. As usual, essays in the first category will also receive feedback from the reviewers, and the corresponding authors will be required to take that feedback into account for the final submission.
In order to facilitate the second round of review, authors of essays in need of major revisions will be requested to accompany their second submission with a cover letter mapping the requested revisions to specific parts of the essay. The program committee will use the cover letter and the revised submission to arrive at a final decision.
The second phase will only be used to elevate promising work to the conference’s standard, not to require additional work on essays already deemed up-to-standard.
Instructions for Authors
Essays should use the ACM SIGPLAN Conference acmart
Format, with the sigplan
and review
\documentclass
options. This produces two-column, 10pt files. If you use LaTeX or Word, please use the provided ACM SIGPLAN acmart
templates provided here. All submissions should be in PDF format. Authors need to ensure their submissions are legible when printed on a black and white printer and that colors remain distinct and font sizes are legible.
The following list describes the typical expectations for a submission:
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All submitted essays should conform to the formatting instructions unless there is a reason founded in the nature of the essay to do otherwise; in this case, please preface the essay with the reasons for the variation.
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Essays must describe unpublished work that is not currently submitted for publication elsewhere as described by SIGPLAN’s Republication Policy. Submitters should also be aware of ACM’s Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism.
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There is no limit on the length of submissions, but note that reviewers will not be obligated to read beyond the end of their interest. The main part of the final version should not exceed 14 pages unless there are two program committee members who believe the content requires a longer essay, and the quality of the writing is likely to sustain readers. If otherwise your final version is longer than those 14 pages, you must re-submit it before the final deadline so the program committee can reëxamine it. No limit is imposed on the bibliographic section or other appendices.
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The camera-ready version (including the bibliographic section or other appendices) should be no longer than 25 pages.
However, given the nature of the Onward! Essays track, we understand that authors of certain submissions might have special requirements. If there are any concerns, please contact the PC Chair (or, if you prefer, a different member of the PC) to discuss the issue.
Authors Take Note:
- Authors of accepted papers are strongly encouraged to present their work in person at the conference but that is not required. There will be a remote participation option, the details of which are to be decided.
- 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 your conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work.
Submissions
Essays can be submitted via the Onward! 2024 Essays submissions page.