14th International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts & Experience (GPCE'15)

Generative and component approaches and domain-specific abstractions are revolutionizing software development just as automation and componentization revolutionized manufacturing. Raising the level of abstraction in software specification has been a fundamental goal of the computing community for several decades. Key technologies for automating program development and lifting the abstraction level closer to the problem domain are Generative Programming for program synthesis, Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) for compact problem-oriented programming notations, and corresponding Implementation Technologies aiming at modularity, correctness, reuse, and evolution. As the field matures Applications and Empirical Results are of increasing importance.

The International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts & Experience (GPCE) is a venue for researchers and practitioners interested in techniques that use program generation, domain-specific languages, and component deployment to increase programmer productivity, improve software quality, and shorten the time-to-market of software products. In addition to exploring cutting-edge techniques of generative software, our goal is to foster further cross-fertilization between the software engineering and the programming languages research communities.

GPCE Papers: Call for Papers

Scope

Generative and component approaches and domain-specific abstractions are revolutionizing software development just as automation and componentization revolutionized manufacturing. Raising the level of abstraction in software specification has been a fundamental goal of the computing community for several decades. Key technologies for automating program development and lifting the abstraction level closer to the problem domain are Generative Programming for program synthesis, Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) for compact problem-oriented programming notations, and corresponding Implementation Technologies aiming at modularity, correctness, reuse, and evolution. As the field matures Applications and Empirical Results are of increasing importance.

The International Conference on Generative Programming: Concepts & Experiences (GPCE) is a venue for researchers and practitioners interested in techniques that use program generation, domain-specific languages, and component deployment to increase programmer productivity, improve software quality, and shorten the time-to-market of software products. In addition to exploring cutting-edge techniques of generative software, our goal is to foster further cross-fertilization between the software engineering and the programming languages research communities.

Topics of Interest

GPCE seeks contributions on all topics related to generative software and its properties. As technology is maturing and sophisticated but increasingly complex applications and services are realized in a variety of application areas (e.g., Cloud Computing, Mobile Computing, Internet of Things, Cyber Physical Systems, Software Defined Networking, etc), this year, we are particularly looking for empirical evaluations in this context. Key topics include (but are certainly not limited too):

1. Generative software
   • Domain-specific languages (language extension, language embedding, language design, language theory, language workbenches, interpreters, compilers)
   • Product lines (domain engineering, feature-oriented and aspect-oriented programming, preprocessors, feature interactions)
   • Metaprogramming (reflection, staging, partial evaluation)
   • Program synthesis
   • Implementation techniques and tool support (components, plug-ins, libraries, metaprogramming, macros, templates, generic programming, run-time code generation, model-driven development, composition tools, code-completion and code-recommendation systems)
2. Practical applications and empirical evaluations
   • Empirical evaluations of all topics above (user studies, substantial case studies, controlled experiments, surveys, rigorous measurements)
   • Application areas and engineering practice (Cloud Computing, Mobile Computing, High Performance Computing, Internet of Things, Cyber Physical Systems, Software Defined Networking, Patterns and Middleware, Reactive Programming, Development methods, etc)
3. Properties of generative software
   • Correctness of generators and generated code (analysis, testing, formal methods, domain-specific error messages, safety, security)
   • Reuse and evolution
   • Modularity, separation of concerns, understandability, and maintainability
   • Performance engineering, nonfunctional properties (program optimization and parallelization, GPGPUs, multicore, footprint, metrics)

We particularly welcome papers that address some of the key challenges in field, for example

• Synthesizing code from declarative specifications
• Supporting extensible languages and language embedding
• Ensuring correctness and other nonfunctional properties of generated code; proving generators correct
• Improving error reporting with domain-specific error messages
• Reasoning about generators; handling variability-induced complexity in product lines
• Providing efficient interpreters and execution languages
• Human factors in developing and maintaining generators

Note on empirical evaluations: GPCE is committed to the empirical evaluation of generative software and use in practical applications. Publishing empirical papers at programming-language venues can be challenging. We understand the frustration of authors when, for example, reviews simply recommend repeating entire experiments with human subjects with slight deviations in execution. To alleviate such problems, we will recruit program committee experts who routinely work with empirical methods, and we will actively seek external reviews where appropriate. During submissions, authors can optionally indicate that a paper contains substantial empirical work, and we will endeavor to have the paper reviewed by experts familiar with the empirical research methods that are used in the paper. The program committee discussions will reflect on both technical contributions and research methods. For more context, see also Hints for Reviewing Empirical Work in Software Engineering.

Policy: Incremental improvements over previously published work should have been evaluated through systematic, comparative, empirical, or experimental evaluation. Submissions must adhere to SIGPLAN’s republication policy (http://www.sigplan.org). Please contact the program chair if you have any questions about how this policy applies to your paper (chairs@gpce.org).

Submitted articles must not have been previously published or currently be submitted for publication elsewhere. The program chairs will apply the principles of the ACM Plagiarism Policy throughout the submission and review process.

Submissions

The submission site will use EasyChair. Submission link is now active. Please use the following link to submit your paper: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=gpce15. When submitting your paper, make sure to indicate the catergory (research full, research short, tool demonstration paper)

Research Papers:

• Full Papers 10 pages in SIGPLAN proceedings style (sigplanconf.cls, default font size, see http://www.sigplan.org/authorInformation.htm) reporting original and unpublished results of theoretical, empirical, conceptual, or experimental research that contribute to scientific knowledge in the areas listed below (the PC chair can advise on appropriateness).

• Short Papers 4 pages or less in SIGPLAN proceedings style (sigplanconf.cls, default font size, see http://www.sigplan.org/authorInformation.htm). The goal of short papers is to promote current work on research and practice. Short papers represent an early communication of research and do not always require complete results as in the case of a full paper. In this way, authors can introduce new ideas to the community, discuss ideas and get early feedback. Please note that short papers are not intended to be position statements. Short papers are included in the proceedings and will be presented with a smaller time slot at the conference.

Note. Papers will be administratively rejected and will not be reviewed if they exceed the page limit or use condensed formatting.

Tool demonstrations: Tool demonstrations should present tools that implement generative techniques, and are available for use. Any of the GPCE topics of interest are appropriate areas for tool demonstrations, although purely commercial tool demonstrations will not be accepted. Submissions have must provide a tool description of 4 pages in SIGPLAN proceedings style (see above) and a demonstration outline including screenshots of up to 4 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 4-page demonstration outline will be used by the program committee only for evaluating the submission.

Tech talks: Depending on whether there is space in the program, GPCE may solicit Tech talks. See the GPCE’15 tech talks call for contributions for details. For now, if you are interested in presenting a Tech talk, please contact the chairs (chairs@gpce.org).

Workshops: Workshops will be organized by SPLASH. Please inform us (chairs@gpce.org) and contact the SPLASH organizers if you would like to organize a workshop of interest to the GPCE audience.

Journal Special Issue

Authors of a set of top ranked papers selected by the GPCE ’15 program committee will be invited to submit extended versions of their GPCE ’15 papers to a special issue of the Elsevier Computer Languages, Systems and Structures (COMLAN) journal. The guest editors of this special issue will be Ulrik Pagh Schultz (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark), Kenichi Asai (Ochanomizu Univ, Japan) and Aniruddha Gokhale (Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA).

Special issue submission guidelines

Special issue invitation : September 15, 2015

Special issue submission : January 1, 2016

Special issue notification: May 1, 2016

Special issue publication : July 1, 2016

The special issue will publish GPCE’15 papers by invitation from the guest editors, is closed to papers outside the conference, and will only include top-ranked papers from GPCE’15 (based on the GPCE’15 review). The special issue will be published by Elsevier in Computer Languages, Systems and Structures (COMLAN):

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-languages-systems-and-structures/