Scope

The annual Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages is a forum for the discussion of all aspects of programming languages and systems, with emphasis on how principles underpin practice. Both theoretical and experimental papers are welcome, on topics ranging from formal frameworks to experience reports. Papers discussing new ideas and areas are most welcome, as are high-quality expositions or elucidations of existing concepts that are likely to yield new insights ("pearls").

Evaluation

The program committee will evaluate the technical contribution of each submission as well as its accessibility to both experts and the general POPL audience. All papers will be judged on significance, originality, relevance, correctness, and clarity. Each paper should explain its contributions in both general and technical terms, identifying what has been accomplished, explaining why it is significant, and comparing it with previous work. More advice on writing technical papers can be found on the SIGPLAN Author Information page; advice on writing pearls can be found in the ICFP 2008 Call for Papers.

Submission guidelines

Authors should submit an abstract of at most 300 words and a full paper of no more than 12 pages formatted according to the ACM proceedings format. These 12 pages include everything (i.e., it is the total length of the paper). The program chair will reject papers that exceed the length requirement or are submitted late. Templates for ACM format are available for Word Perfect, Microsoft Word, and LaTeX at http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigplan/authorInformation.htm (use the 9 pt template). Submissions should be in PDF and printable on US Letter and A4 sized paper.

Submitted papers must adhere to the SIGPLAN Republication Policy. Concurrent submissions to other conferences, workshops, journals, or similar forums of publication are not allowed.

Following the recent history of PLDI and the lengthier history of other conferences, POPL'12 will employ double-blind reviewing. To facilitate this, submitted papers must adhere to two rules:

1. author names and institutions must be omitted, and

2. references to authors' own related work should be in the third person (e.g., not "We build on our previous work ..." but rather "We build on the work of ...").

Nothing should be done in the name of anonymity that weakens the submission or makes the job of reviewing the paper more difficult (e.g., important background references should not be omitted or anonymized). The program chair has put together a document answering frequently asked questions that hopefully addresses many common concerns. When in doubt, contact the program chair.

There is an option on the paper submission page to submit supplementary material, e.g., a tech report including proofs, or the software used to implement a system. This supplemental material should NOT be anonymized; it will be made available to reviewers after the intial reviews have been completed and author names are revealed. As usual, reviewers may choose to use the supplemental material or not at their discretion.

Papers can be submitted here.