The ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering (SLE) is devoted to the principles of software languages: their design, their implementation, and their evolution.

With the ubiquity of computers, software has become the dominating intellectual asset of our time. In turn, this software depends on software languages, namely the languages it is written in, the languages used to describe its environment, and the languages driving its development process. Given that everything depends on software and that software depends on software languages, it seems fair to say that for many years to come, everything will depend on software languages.

Software language engineering (SLE) is the discipline of engineering languages and their tools required for the creation of software. It abstracts from the differences between programming languages, modelling languages, and other software languages, and emphasizes the engineering facet of the creation of such languages, that is, the establishment of the scientific methods and practices that enable the best results. While SLE is certainly driven by its metacircular character (software languages are engineered using software languages), SLE is not self-satisfying: its scope extends to the engineering of languages for all and everything.

Like its predecessors, the 12th edition of the SLE conference, SLE 2019, will bring together researchers from different areas united by their common interest in the creation, capture, and tooling of software languages. It overlaps with traditional conferences on the design and implementation of programming languages, model-driven engineering, and compiler construction, and emphasizes the fusion of their communities. To foster the latter, SLE traditionally fills a two-day program with a single track, with the only temporal overlap occurring between co-located events.

SLE 2019 is to be held between October 20th and 22nd 2019, co-located with SPLASH and GPCE in Athens, Greece.

• Community website: http://www.sleconf.org/2019
• Conference website: https://conf.researchr.org/home/sle-2019
• Submission website: https://sle19.hotcrp.com

Proceedings will be available online.

Call for Papers

Topics of Interest

SLE 2019 solicits high-quality contributions in areas ranging from theoretical and conceptual contributions, to tools, techniques, and frameworks in the domain of software language engineering. Topics relevant to SLE cover generic aspects of software languages development rather than aspects of engineering a specific language. In particular, SLE is interested in contributions from the following areas:

• Software Language Design and Implementation
  • Approaches to and methods for language design
  • Static semantics (e.g., design rules, well-formedness constraints)
  • Techniques for specifying behavioral / executable semantics
  • Generative approaches (incl. code synthesis, compilation)
  • Meta-languages, meta-tools, language workbenches
• Software Language Validation
  • Verification and formal methods for languages
  • Testing techniques for languages
  • Simulation techniques for languages
• Software Language Integration and Composition
  • Coordination of heterogeneous languages and tools
  • Mappings between languages (incl. transformation languages)
  • Traceability between languages
  • Deployment of languages to different platforms
• Software Language Maintenance
  • Software language reuse
  • Language evolution
  • Language families and variability
• Domain-specific approaches for any aspects of SLE (design, implementation, validation, maintenance)
• Empirical evaluation and experience reports of language engineering tools
  • User studies evaluating usability
  • Performance benchmarks
  • Industrial applications

Types of Submissions

• Research papers: These should report a substantial research contribution to SLE or successful application of SLE techniques or both. Full paper submissions must not exceed 12 pages excluding bibliography.

• Tool papers: Because of SLE’s interest in tools, we seek papers that present software tools related to the field of SLE. Selection criteria include originality of the tool, its innovative aspects, and relevance to SLE. Any of the SLE topics of interest are appropriate areas for tool demonstrations. Submissions must provide a tool description of 4 pages excluding bibliography, and a demonstration outline including screenshots of up to 6 pages. Tool demonstrations must have the keywords “Tool Demo” or “Tool Demonstration” in the title. The 4-page tool description will, if the demonstration is accepted, be published in the proceedings. The 6-page demonstration outline will be used by the program committee only for evaluating the submission.

• New ideas / vision papers: New ideas papers should describe new, non-conventional SLE research approaches that depart from standard practice. They are intended to describe well-defined research ideas that are at an early stage of investigation. Vision papers are intended to present new unifying theories about existing SLE research that can lead to the development of new technologies or approaches. New ideas / vision papers must not exceed 4 pages excluding bibliography.

Workshops: Workshops will be organized by SPLASH. Please inform us and contact the SPLASH organizers if you would like to organize a workshop of interest to the SLE audience. Information on how to submit workshops can be found at the SPLASH 2019 Website.

Artifact Evaluation

For the third year SLE will use an evaluation process for assessing the quality of the artifacts on which papers are based to foster the culture of experimental reproducibility. Authors of accepted papers are invited to submit artifacts. For more information, please have a look at the Artifact Evaluation page.

Submission

Format

Submissions must conform to the ACM SIGPLAN Conference Format “acmart”; please make sure that you always use the latest ACM SIGPLAN acmart LaTeX template, and that the document class definition is \documentclass[sigplan,anonymous,review]{acmart}. Do not make any changes to this format!

Using the Word template is strongly discouraged.

Ensure that your submission is legible when printed on a black and white printer. In particular, please check that colors remain distinct and font sizes in figures and tables are legible.

To increase fairness in reviewing, a double-blind review process has become standard across SIGPLAN conferences. For the first time, SLE will follow the double-blind process. Author names and institutions should be omitted from submitted papers, and references to the authors’ own related work should be in the third person. No other changes are necessary, and authors will not be penalized if reviewers are able to infer their identities in implicit ways.

All submissions must be in PDF format.

Concurrent Submissions

Papers 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. Submissions that violate these policies will be desk-rejected.

Submission Site

Submissions will be accepted at https://sle19.hotcrp.com/.

Reviewing Process

All submitted papers will be reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. Research papers and tool papers will be evaluated concerning novelty, correctness, significance, readability, and alignment with the conference call. New ideas / vision papers will be evaluated primarily concerning novelty, significance, readability, and alignment with the conference call.

For fairness reasons, all submitted papers must conform to the above instructions. Submissions that violate these instructions may be rejected without review, at the discretion of the PC chairs.

Awards

• Distinguished paper: Award for most notable paper, as determined by the PC chairs based on the recommendations of the programme committee.
• Distinguished reviewer: Award for distinguished reviewer, as determined by the PC chairs.
• Distinguished artifact: Award for the artifact most significantly exceeding expectations, as determined by the AEC chairs based on the recommendations of the artifact evaluation committee.

Publication

All accepted papers will be published in the ACM Digital Library.

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.

Contact

For additional information, clarification, or answers to questions, please contact the organizers by email (bruno@cs.hku.hk and gray@cs.ua.edu).

Accepted Papers

Software Language Engineering –

42 Frequently Asked Questions

Ralf Lämmel, Software (Language) Engineer, Facebook, Probability London

Abstract

See the questions below. Beware of an Easter egg. As if I knew the answers or was entitled to answer! My talk will cherry-pick from the list and deliver informed opinions. Your questions and answers will be as good as mine.

On the term “software language” (SL):

1. What is the definition of (the term) SL?
2. What different types of SLs do exist?
3. What are borderline examples of SLs?
4. Why not just call it computer language?
5. Why is such a broad notion useful?
6. What parallels exist between software and natural languages?
7. When was the term coined, by whom, and why?

On the term “SL engineering” (SLE):

1. What is the definition of SLE?
2. How can SLE be viewed as a specialization of SE?
3. What’s the lifecycle of a SL?
4. What’s the key notion of SLE? (Spoiler: “technological space”)
5. How does SLE relate to CC, MDE, PLT, …?
6. How does the “Tower of Babel” metaphor apply to SL(E)?
7. When was the term coined, by whom, and why?

On the “SLE conference” (sleconf):

1. What’s the mission of sleconf?
2. What’s the stereotypical sleconf paper?
3. What other conferences publish SLEish papers?
4. Why did we need yet another conference?
5. How is sleconf achieving world domination?
6. When will its mission be accomplished?
7. What happened to the position of the “cheese chair”?

On SLE research:

1. What problems have been solved in the last 10 years?
2. What are the emerging research themes (or domains)?
3. What are open problems in SLE?
4. Will we still see papers on parsing in 10 years from now?
5. Will ontologies and mega models play a larger role?
6. What’s next after “Globalization” of DSLs?
7. Why do we suddenly stop feeling tired once we get into bed?

On SLE education:

1. To what extent is SLE covered by university curricula?
2. How (not) to integrate SLE into a curriculum?
3. What are the learning objectives and acquired competences?
4. What’s the SLE Body of Knowledge (or what should it be)?
5. How much of it withstands the test of time?
6. How to use chrestomathies in SLE education?
7. How to use mega models in SLE education?

On SLE in practice:

1. What’s the career profile of an SL engineer?
2. What bad things happen when SLE isn’t properly used?
3. How much SLE does Big Tech need now and in 10 years?
4. Will technological space travel continue to grow?
5. What’s the relevance of SLE in the new world of ML/AI?
6. What technological changes, related to SLE, are happening?
7. How was life like before the SLE epoch started on earth?

Bio

Ralf Lämmel is Software Engineer at Facebook since 2018 and Professor of Computer Science (currently on leave of absence) at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Germany since 2007. In the past, he had held positions at the University of l’Aquila, Microsoft, the Free University of Amsterdam, CWI (Dutch Center for Mathematics and Computer Science), and the University of Rostock, Germany.

His research and teaching interests include software language engineering, software reverse engineering, software re-engineering, mining software repositories, functional programming, grammar-based and model-based techniques, and, more recently, megamodeling. In his current work at Facebook, he applies machine learning (in a broad sense) in an infrastructural context while developing an increasing interest in data engineering and science.

He is one of the founding fathers of the international summer school series on Generative and Transformational Techniques on Software Engineering (GTTSE) and the international conference on Software Language Engineering (SLE). He is the author of Springer textbook on Software Language Engineering: Software Languages: Syntax, Semantics, and Metaprogramming, Springer, 2018.