# Call for Talk Proposals: Off the Beaten Track 2017 http://conf.researchr.org/track/POPL-2017/OBT-2017 21st January 2017 (co-located with POPL 2017, Paris, France) ## Background Programming language researchers have the principles, tools, algorithms and abstractions to solve all kinds of problems, in all areas of computer science. However, identifying and evaluating new problems, particularly those that lie outside the typical core PL problems we all know and love, can be a significant challenge. This workshop’s goal is to identify and discuss problems that do not often show up in our top conferences, but where programming language research can make a substantial impact. We hope fora like this will increase the diversity of problems that are studied by PL researchers and thus increase our community’s impact on the world. While many workshops associated with POPL have become more like mini-conferences themselves, this is an anti-goal for OBT. The workshop will be informal and structured to encourage discussion. We are at least as interested in problems as in solutions. ## Scope A good submission is one that outlines a new problem or an interesting, underrepresented problem domain. Good submissions may also remind the PL community of problems that were once in vogue but have not recently been seen in top PL conferences. Good submissions do not need to propose complete or even partial solutions, though there should be some reason to believe that programming languages researchers have the tools necessary to search for solutions in the area at hand. Submissions that seem likely to stimulate discussion about the direction of programming language research are encouraged. Use your imagination. It's hard to imagine how a paper that discusses programming languages could be considered out of scope. If in doubt, ask the program chair. ## Previous OBTs 2017 marks the sixth year of OBT and its co-location with POPL. The previous five workshops were: - OBT 2016, St. Petersburg, USA - OBT 2015, Mumbai, India - OBT 2014, San Diego, USA - OBT 2013, Rome, Italy - OBT 2012, Philadelphia, USA ## Important Dates * 10th November 2016: Submission deadline * 8th December 2016: Notification * (18th December 2016: POPL early registration) * 21st January 2017: Workshop ## Submission Please submit your talk proposal via EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=obt2017 All submissions should be in PDF format, two pages or less, in at least 10pt font, printable on A4 and on US Letter paper. Authors are welcome to include links to multimedia content such as YouTube videos or online demos. Reviewers may or may not view linked documents; it is up to authors to convince the reviewers to do so. For each accepted submission, one of the authors will give a talk at the workshop. The length of the talk will depend on the submissions received and how the program committee decides to assemble the program. Reviewing of submissions will be very light. Authors should not expect a detailed analysis of their submission by the program committee. Accepted submissions will be posted as is on this web site. By submitting a document, you agree that if it is accepted, it may be posted and you agree that one of the co-authors will attend the workshop and give a talk there. There will be no revision process and no formal publication. ## Organisers General chair: - Lindsey Kuper, Intel Labs, USA Programme chair: - Robert Atkey, University of Strathclyde, UK Programme committee: - Ekaterina Komendantskaya, Heriot-Watt University, UK - Chris Martens, North Carolina State University, USA - Tomas Petricek, University of Cambridge, UK - Wren Romano, Google Inc., USA - Mary Sheeran, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden - KC Sivaramakrishnan, University of Cambridge, UK - Wouter Swierstra, Utrecht University, Netherlands