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.

Dates
Plenary

This program is tentative and subject to change.

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Wed 23 Oct

Displayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change

12:20 - 13:40
12:20
80m
Lunch
Lunch
Catering

13:40 - 15:20
Onward! EssaysOnward! Essays at Pacific
13:40
40m
Talk
A Case for Feminism in Programming Language Design
Onward! Essays
Felienne Hermans Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Ari Schlesinger University of Georgia
14:30
40m
Talk
Dialogues on Natural Code
Onward! Essays
Lu Wilson Tentpole, David H. Ackley Living Computation Foundation
15:20 - 16:00
Coffee BreakCatering at Foyer
15:20
40m
Coffee break
Break
Catering

17:00 - 17:40
Onward! EssaysOnward! Essays at Pacific

Please stay seated :) Follows directly after the Onward! Papers session before.

17:00
40m
Talk
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
Reception and Poster sessionCatering at California
17:40
2h
Dinner
Dinner
Catering

Thu 24 Oct

Displayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change

10:10 - 10:40
Coffee BreakCatering at Foyer
10:10
30m
Coffee break
Break
Catering

10:40 - 12:20
Onward! EssaysOnward! Essays at Pacific
10:40
40m
Talk
tl;dr: Chill, y’all – AI will not devour SE
Onward! Essays
Eunsuk Kang Carnegie Mellon University, Mary Shaw Carnegie Mellon University
11:30
40m
Talk
A New Cognitive Perspective on Simplicity in System and Product Design
Onward! Essays
12:20 - 13:40
12:20
80m
Lunch
Lunch
Catering

13:40 - 15:20
Onward! EssaysOnward! Essays at Pacific
13:40
40m
Talk
Use Site Checking Considered Harmful
Onward! Essays
Dimi Racordon EPFL, LAMP, Benjamin Chung University of Washington
14:30
40m
Talk
(Programs), Proofs and Refutations (and Tests and Mutants)
Onward! Essays
Alex Groce Northern Arizona University
15:20 - 16:00
Coffee BreakCatering at Foyer
15:20
40m
Coffee break
Break
Catering

Fri 25 Oct

Displayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change

10:30 - 11:00
Coffee BreakCatering at Foyer
10:30
30m
Coffee break
Break
Catering

11:00 - 12:20
Onward! EssaysOnward! Essays at Pacific
11:00
40m
Talk
Redressing the balance: a yin-yang perspective on information technologyRemote
Onward! Essays
11:40
40m
Talk
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
Lunch and AwardsCatering at California
12:20
90m
Lunch
Awards Lunch
Catering

15:30 - 16:00
Coffee BreakCatering at Foyer
15:30
30m
Coffee break
Break
Catering

16:00 - 17:40
Onward! EssaysOnward! Essays at Pacific
16:00
40m
Talk
The Linguistics of Programming
Onward! Essays
Colin Gordon Drexel University
16:45
40m
Talk
The Hidden Program State Hurts Everyone
Onward! Essays
Sverrir Thorgeirsson ETH Zurich, Oliver Graf ETH Zurich, Zhendong Su ETH Zurich
17:25
15m
Talk
Onward! Conclusion
Onward! Essays
C: Marcel Taeumel University of Potsdam; Hasso Plattner Institute, C: Jonathan Edwards Independent

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:

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:

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

Questions? Use the SPLASH Onward! Essays contact form.