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Call for Papers - SLE 2008

1st International Conference on Software Language Engineering

http://planet-sl.org/sle2008/
Toulouse, France, September 29-30, 2008

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Co-located with 11th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Model-Driven
Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS 2008)

Conference proceedings will be published in Springer's LNCS series.

The 1st International Conference on Software Language Engineering
(SLE) is devoted to topics related to artificial languages in software
engineering. SLE is an international research forum that aims to bring
together researchers and practitioners from both industry and academia
to expand the frontiers of software language engineering.
Historically, SLE emerged from two established workshop series: LDTA,
Language Descriptions, Tools, and Applications, which has been a
satellite event at ETAPS for the last 8 years, and ATEM which has been
co-located with MODELS and WCRE for the last 5 years. These, as well
as several other conferences and workshops, have investigated various
aspects of language design, implementation, and evolution but from
different perspectives. SLE's foremost mission is to encourage and
organize communication between communities that have traditionally
looked at software languages from different, more specialized, and yet
complementary perspectives. SLE emphasizes the fundamental notion of
languages as opposed to any realization in specific "technical
spaces".


Scope
-----

The term "software language" comprises all sorts of artificial
languages used in software development including general purpose
programming languages, domain-specific languages, modeling and
metamodeling languages, data models, and ontologies. We use this term
in its broadest sense. Thus, for example, modeling languages include
UML and UML-based languages, synchronous languages used in safety
critical applications, business process modeling languages, and web
application modeling languages, to name a few. Perhaps less obviously,
the term "software language" also comprises APIs and collections of
design patterns that are indeed implicitly defined languages.

Software language engineering is the application of a systematic,
disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, use, and
maintenance of these languages. Thus, the SLE conference is concerned
with all phases of the lifecycle of software languages; these include
the design, implementation, documentation, testing, deployment,
evolution, recovery, and retirement of languages. Of special interest
are tools, techniques, methods and formalisms that support these
activities. In particular, tools are often based on or even
automatically generated from a formal description of the
language. Hence, of special interest is the treatment of language
descriptions as software artifacts, akin to programs - while paying
attention to the special status of language descriptions, subject to
tailored engineering principles and methods for modularization,
refactoring, refinement, composition, versioning, co-evolution, and
analysis.


Topics of interest
------------------

We solicit high-quality contributions in the area of SLE ranging from
theoretical and conceptual contributions to tools, techniques and
frameworks that support the aforementioned lifecycle activities. Some
examples of tools, techniques, applications, and problems are listed
below in order to clarify the types of contributions sought by SLE.

* Formalisms used in designing and specifying languages and tools
that analyze such language descriptions: For example, of interest
are formalisms such as grammars, schemas, ontologies, and
metamodels; innovative tools that detect inconsistencies in a
metamodel or analyze grammars in building a parser; and formal
logics and proof assistants that verify properties of language
specifications.

* Language implementation techniques: This includes advances in
traditional compiler generator tools such as parser/scanner
generators, attribute grammar systems, term-rewriting systems,
functional-programming-based combinator libraries, among many
others; also of interest are metamodel-based and ontology tools
such as constraint, rule, view, transformation, and query
formalisms and engines.

* Program and model transformation tools: Examples include tools that
support program refinement and refactoring, model-based
development, aspect and model weaving, model extraction,
metamodeling, model transformations, round-trip engineering, and
runtime system transformation.

* Composition, integration, and mapping tools for managing different
aspects of software languages or different manifestations of a
given language: For example, SLE is interested in tools for mapping
between the concrete and abstract syntax of a language, for
managing textual and graphical concrete syntax for the same or
closely related languages; also, mapping descriptions and tools for
XML/object/relational mappings.

* Language evolution: Included are extensible languages and type
systems and their supporting tools, as well as language conversion
tools. APIs, when considered as languages, are subject to evolution;
thus tools and techniques that assist developers in using a new
version of an API or a competing implementation in a program are
also of interest.

* Approaches to the elicitation, specification, and verification of
requirements for software languages: Examples include the use of
requirements engineering techniques in the development of
domain-specific languages and the application of logic-based
formalisms for verifying language requirements.

* Language development frameworks, methodologies, techniques, best
practices, and tools for the broader language lifecycle covering
phases such as analysis, testing, and documentation. For example,
frameworks for advanced type or error checking systems, constraint
mechanisms, tools for metrics measurement and language usage
analysis, documentation generators, visualization backends,
knowledge and process management approaches, as well as IDE support
for many of these activities are of interest.

* Design challenges in SLE: Example challenges include finding a
balance between specificity and generality in designing
domain-specific languages, between strong static typing and weaker
yet more flexible type systems, or between deep and shallow
embedding approaches, as, for example, in the context of adding
type-safe XML and database programming support to general-purpose
programming languages.

* Applications of languages including innovative domain-specific
languages or "little" languages: Examples include policy languages
for security or service oriented architectures, web-engineering
with schema-based generators or ontology-based annotations. Of
specific interest are the engineering aspects of domain-specific
language support in all of these cases.

Do note that this list is not exclusive and many examples of tools,
techniques, approaches have not been listed. The program committee
chairs encourage potential contributors to contact them with questions
about the scope and topics of interest of SLE.


Paper Submission
----------------

We solicit the following types of papers:

* Research papers. These should report a substantial research
contribution to SLE and/or successful application of SLE
techniques. Full paper submissions must not exceed 20 pages.

* Short papers. These may describe interesting or thought-provoking
concepts that are not yet fully developed or evaluated, make an
initial contribution to challenging research issues in SLE, or
discuss and analyze controversial issues in the field. These papers
must not exceed 10 pages.

* Tool demonstration papers. Because of SLE's ample interest in
tools, we seek papers that present software tools related to the
field of SLE. These papers will accompany a tool demonstration to
be given at the conference. These papers must not exceed 10
pages. The selection criteria include the originality of the tool,
its innovative aspects, the relevance of the tool to SLE, and the
maturity of the tool. Submissions may also include an appendix
(that will not be published) containing additional screen-shots and
discussion of the proposed demonstration.

* Panel proposals. Panels that discuss controversial and challenging
issues in the area of SLE, perhaps based on looking at SLE related
problems from the different perspectives of different communities
are also sought. The panels should have at least three panelists
and a moderator, and the proposal must not exceed three pages. One
panel is planned for the end of each of the two days of the
conference program. The panel moderators will be invited to
contribute a summary of the panel discussion compiling different
positions presented on the panel to the final proceedings.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published or
currently be submitted for publication elsewhere. All submitted papers
will be closely reviewed by at least three members of the program
committee. All accepted papers will be made available at the
conference in the pre-proceedings and published in the
post-proceedings of the conference, which will appear in Springer's
Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Authors will have the
opportunity to revise their accepted paper for the pre and
post-proceedings. All papers must be formatted by following Springer's
LNCS style and will be submitted using EasyChair:
http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sle2008.
Further details regarding submission can be found on the SLE web page:
http://planet-sl.org/sle2008/.


Special Issue
-------------

Negotiations are underway to compile a special issue in an appropriate
journal based on extended versions of selected SLE 2008 papers.


Important Dates
---------------
* Paper submission: July 14, 2008
* Author notification: August 25, 2008
* Paper submission for pre-proceedings: September 8, 2008
* Conference: September 29 - 30, 2008
* Camera-ready paper submission for post-proceedings: November 1, 2008
* LNCS post-proceedings mailed to authors (approx.): February 1, 2009


Organization
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Steering Committee
* Mark van den Brand, TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands
* James Cordy, Queen's University, Canada
* Jean-Marie Favre, University of Grenoble, France
* Dragan Gasevic, Athabasca University, Canada
* Gorel Hedin, Lund University, Sweden
* Ralf Laemmel, Universitat Koblenz-Landau, Germany
* Eric Van Wyk, University of Minnesota, USA
* Andreas Winter, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Germany

General Chair
* Ralf Laemmel, Universitat Koblenz-Landau, Germany

Program Committee Co-Chairs
* Dragan Gasevic, Athabasca University, Canada
* Eric Van Wyk, University of Minnesota, USA

Organization Committee
* Jean-Marie Favre, University of Grenoble, France
* Jean-Sebastien Sottet, Web Chair, University of Grenoble, France
* Andreas Winter, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Germany
* Steffen Zschaler, Publicity Chair, TU Dresden, Germany

Program Committee
* TBD.