SLE (Software Language Engineering) 2021

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 14th edition of the SLE conference, SLE 2021, 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 2021 will be co-located with SPLASH, GPCE and SAS. SLE 2021 will be held as a virtual event, but there will also be a room at SPLASH where SLE talks will be projected for in-person SPLASH attendees.

• Community website: http://www.sleconf.org/2021
• Conference website: https://conf.researchr.org/home/sle-2021

Accepted Papers

Call for Papers

Types of Submissions

SLE accepts three types of papers:

• Research papers: These are “traditional” papers detailing research contributions to SLE. These papers have a limit of 12 pages, and may optionally include 8 further pages of bibliography/appendices

• Tool papers: These are papers which focus on the tooling aspects which are often forgotten or neglected in research papers. A good tool paper focuses on practical insights that are likely to be useful to other implementers or users in the future. Any of the SLE topics of interest are appropriate areas for tool demonstrations. Submissions must not exceed 5 pages and may optionally include 1 further page of bibliography / appendices. They may optionally come with an appendix with a demo outline / screenshots and/or a short video/screencast illustrating the tool. The title of a Tool paper must start with “Tool Demo:”.

• New ideas / vision papers: These are papers that may describe new, unconventional software language engineering research positions or approaches that depart from standard practice. They can describe well-defined research ideas that are at an early stage of investigation. They could also provide new evidence to challenge common wisdom, present new unifying theories about existing SLE research that provides novel insight or that can lead to the development of new technologies or approaches, or apply SLE technology to radically new application areas. New ideas / vision papers must not exceed 5 pages, and may optionally include 1 further page of bibliography / appendices. The title of a new ideas / vision papers must start with “New Ideas:” or “Vision:”.

Topics of Interest

Broadly speaking, SLE covers software language engineering rather than engineering a specific software language. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• 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

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 2021 Website.

Artifact Evaluation

For the sixth 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. The submission link for artifacts is sle21ae.hotcrp.com.

Submission

Format

Submissions have to use 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!

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. In this line, 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.

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.

After the review round, authors will get a chance to respond before a final decision round.

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 Programme Chairs (Emma Söderberg and Dimitris Kolovos).