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SPLASH 2017
Sun 22 - Fri 27 October 2017 Vancouver, Canada

The 8th Workshop on Evaluation and Usability of Programming Languages and Tools (PLATEAU) at SPLASH 2017.

Theme

Programming languages exist to enable programmers to develop software effectively. But programmer efficiency depends on the usability of the languages and tools with which they develop software. The aim of this workshop is to discuss methods, metrics and techniques for evaluating the usability of languages and language tools. The supposed benefits of such languages and tools cover a large space, including making programs easier to read, write, and maintain; allowing programmers to write more flexible and powerful programs; and restricting programs to make them more safe and secure.

PLATEAU gathers the intersection of researchers in the programming language, programming tool, and human-computer interaction communities to share their research and discuss the future of evaluation and usability of programming languages and tools.

Some particular areas of interest are:

  • empirical studies of programming languages
  • methodologies and philosophies behind language and tool evaluation
  • software design metrics and their relations to the underlying language
  • user studies of language features and software engineering tools
  • visual techniques for understanding programming languages
  • design of new programming languages
  • critical comparisons of programming paradigms
  • tools to support evaluating programming languages
  • psychology of programming
  • domain specific language (e.g. database languages, security/privacy languages, architecture description languages) usability and evaluation

Keynote

We’re delighted to announce that Sumit Gulwani will be giving a keynote at PLATEAU 2017 on Usability Design Space in Programming by Examples.

Links

Previous Workshops

Facebook Group

Mailing List

Accepted Papers

Title
A User Study to Inform the Design of the Obsidian Blockchain DSL
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Can Some Programming Languages Be Considered Harmful?
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Development of a Web Platform for Code Peer-Testing
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Lost in Space and Time? Quantifying the Size of Unit Test Execution Histories
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Modeling Programming Problem Solving Through Interactive Worked Examples
PLATEAU
Pre-print
One λ at a time: What do we know about presenting human-friendly output from program analysis tools?
PLATEAU
Pre-print
OpenMP or Pthreads: Which is Better for Beginners?
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Preliminary Analysis of Contestant Performance for a Code Hunt Contest
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Preliminary Analysis of REST API Style Guidelines
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Preventing Babel: Rectifying the Trend of Programming Language Divergence
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Programming Robot Manipulators with Tangible Blocks
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Sympathy for the Devil: Reified Collection of Runtime Errors
PLATEAU
Pre-print
The Uses of Interactive Explorers for Web APIs
PLATEAU
Pre-print
Welcome and Introduction
PLATEAU

What's the Effect of Projectional Editors for Creating Words For Unknown Languages? A Controlled Experiment
PLATEAU
Pre-print

Call for Papers

Programming languages exist to enable programmers to develop software effectively. But programmer efficiency depends on the usability of the languages and tools with which they develop software. The aim of this workshop is to discuss methods, metrics and techniques for evaluating the usability of languages and language tools. The supposed benefits of such languages and tools cover a large space, including making programs easier to read, write, and maintain; allowing programmers to write more flexible and powerful programs; and restricting programs to make them more safe and secure.

PLATEAU gathers the intersection of researchers in the programming language, programming tool, and human-computer interaction communities to share their research and discuss the future of evaluation and usability of programming languages and tools.

Topics

Some particular areas of interest are:

  • empirical studies of programming languages
  • methodologies and philosophies behind language and tool evaluation
  • software design metrics and their relations to the underlying language
  • user studies of language features and software engineering tools
  • visual techniques for understanding programming languages
  • design of new programming languages
  • critical comparisons of programming paradigms
  • tools to support evaluating programming languages
  • psychology of programming
  • domain specific language (e.g. database languages, security/privacy languages, architecture description languages) usability and evaluation

Types of Submissions

PLATEAU encourages submissions of three types of papers:

Research and position papers: We encourage papers that describe work-in-progress or recently completed work based on the themes and goals of the workshop or related topics, report on experiences gained, question accepted wisdom, raise challenging open problems, or propose speculative new approaches. We will accept two types of papers: research papers up to 8 pages in length; and position papers up to 2 pages in length.

Hypotheses papers: Hypotheses papers explicitly identify beliefs of the research community or software industry about how a programming language, programming language feature, or programming language tool affects programming practice. Hypotheses can be collected from mailing lists, blog posts, paper introductions, developer forums, or interviews. Papers should clearly document the source(s) of each hypothesis and discuss the importance, use, and relevance of the hypotheses on research or practice. In addition, we invite language designers to share some of the usability reasoning that influenced their work. These will serve as an important first step in advancing our understanding of how language design supports programmers.Papers may also, but are not required to, review evidence for or against the hypotheses identified. Hypotheses papers can be up to 4 pages in length.

Submission Site

PLATEAU papers should be submitted via HotCRP.

https://plateau17.hotcrp.com/

Format

Submissions should use the ACM SIGPLAN Conference acmart Format, 10 point font, using the font family Times New Roman. All submissions should be in PDF format. If you use LaTeX or Word, please use the provided ACM SIGPLAN acmart Templates provided here. Otherwise, follow the author instructions.

Note that by default the SIGPLAN Conference Format templates produce papers in 9 point font. If you are formatting your paper using LaTeX, you will need to set the 10pt option in the \documentclass command. If you are formatting your paper using Word, you may wish to use the provided Word template that supports this font size. Please include page numbers in your submission with the LaTeX \settopmatter{printfolios=true} command. Please also 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 are legible.

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08:30 - 10:00
Introduction and KeynotePLATEAU at Regency D
08:30
30m
Day opening
Welcome and Introduction
PLATEAU

09:00
60m
Talk
PLATEAU Keynote: Usability Design Space in Programming by Examples
PLATEAU
Sumit Gulwani Microsoft Research
10:30 - 12:00
Tools and EnvironmentsPLATEAU at Regency D
Chair(s): Gustavo Soares Microsoft
10:30
20m
Talk
The Uses of Interactive Explorers for Web APIs
PLATEAU
John Daughtry Google, Inc., Andrew Macvean Google, Inc., Luke Church
Pre-print
10:50
20m
Talk
One λ at a time: What do we know about presenting human-friendly output from program analysis tools?
PLATEAU
Titus Barik Microsoft, Chris Parnin NCSU, Emerson Murphy-Hill North Carolina State University
Pre-print
11:10
20m
Talk
What's the Effect of Projectional Editors for Creating Words For Unknown Languages? A Controlled Experiment
PLATEAU
Niklas Hollmann University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, Thorben Roßenbeck University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, Mark Kunze University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, Liron Türk University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, Stefan Hanenberg University of Duisburg-Essen
Pre-print
11:30
20m
Talk
Development of a Web Platform for Code Peer-Testing
PLATEAU
Manuel Maarek Heriot-Watt University, Léon McGregor Heriot-Watt University
Pre-print
13:30 - 15:00
Language, DSL, and Feature DesignPLATEAU at Regency D
Chair(s): Joshua Sunshine Carnegie Mellon University
13:30
20m
Talk
A User Study to Inform the Design of the Obsidian Blockchain DSL
PLATEAU
Celeste Barnaby Wesleyan University, Michael Coblenz Carnegie Mellon University, Tyler Etzel , Eliezer Kanal Carnegie Mellon University, Joshua Sunshine Carnegie Mellon University, Brad A. Myers Carnegie Mellon University, Jonathan Aldrich Carnegie Mellon University
Pre-print
13:50
15m
Talk
Programming Robot Manipulators with Tangible Blocks
PLATEAU
Yasaman Sefidgar University of Washington, Maya Cakmak University of Washington
Pre-print
14:05
20m
Talk
Preliminary Analysis of REST API Style Guidelines
PLATEAU
Lauren Murphy University of Michigan, Tosin Alliyu Haverford College, Mary Beth Kery Carnegie Mellon University, Brad A. Myers Carnegie Mellon University
Pre-print
14:25
20m
Talk
Sympathy for the Devil: Reified Collection of Runtime Errors
PLATEAU
Tommaso Dal Sasso Università della Svizzera Italiana, Andrei Chiş feenk, Switzerland, Andrea Mocci Universita della Svizzera italiana (USI), Tudor Gîrba CompuGroup Medical Schweiz AG, Michele Lanza Università della Svizzera italiana (USI)
Pre-print
14:45
15m
Talk
Preventing Babel: Rectifying the Trend of Programming Language Divergence
PLATEAU
Alon Amid UC Berkeley, Borivoje Nikolic UC Berkeley
Pre-print
15:30 - 17:00
Insights into Programmer Thought Processes and ExperiencePLATEAU at Regency D
Chair(s): Sarah E. Chasins University of California, Berkeley
15:30
20m
Talk
Lost in Space and Time? Quantifying the Size of Unit Test Execution Histories
PLATEAU
Mohammad reza , Matthias Hauswirth Università della Svizzera italiana (USI)
Pre-print
15:50
15m
Talk
Modeling Programming Problem Solving Through Interactive Worked Examples
PLATEAU
Dastyni Loksa University of Washington, Amy Ko University of Washington
Pre-print
16:05
20m
Talk
OpenMP or Pthreads: Which is Better for Beginners?
PLATEAU
Pedro Bruel University of São Paulo, Paulo Meirelles University of São Paulo and University of Brasília, Raphael Cobe São Paulo State University, Alfredo Goldman University of São Paulo
Pre-print
16:25
20m
Talk
Can Some Programming Languages Be Considered Harmful?
PLATEAU
Sabine Janssens StressLabo, Ulrik Pagh Schultz University of Southern Denmark, Vadim Zaytsev Raincode Labs, Belgium
Pre-print
16:45
20m
Talk
Preliminary Analysis of Contestant Performance for a Code Hunt Contest
PLATEAU
Adrian Clark University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Jonathan Wells University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Angello Astorga , Andrew Xie Independent, Jalen Coleman-Lands University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Tao Xie
Pre-print

For fairness reasons, all submitted papers should conform to the formatting instructions. Submissions that violate these instructions may be rejected without review.

Submission Site

Please take a moment to read the instructions below before using the submission site.

Please submit to https://plateau17.hotcrp.com/.

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.

Format

Submissions should use the ACM SIGPLAN Conference acmart Format, 10 point font, using the font family Times New Roman. All submissions should be in PDF format. If you use LaTeX or Word, please use the provided ACM SIGPLAN acmart Templates provided here. Otherwise, follow the author instructions.

Note that by default the SIGPLAN Conference Format templates produce papers in 9 point font. If you are formatting your paper using LaTeX, you will need to set the 10pt option in the \documentclass command. If you are formatting your paper using Word, you may wish to use the provided Word template that supports this font size. Please include page numbers in your submission with the LaTeX \settopmatter{printfolios=true} command. Please also 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 are legible.

Publication (Digital Library Early Access Warning)

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.

A User Study to Inform the Design of the Obsidian Blockchain DSL

Celeste Barnaby, Michael Coblenz, Tyler Etzel, Eliezer Kanal, Joshua Sunshine, Brad Myers, Jonathan Aldrich

Can Some Programming Languages Be Considered Harmful?

S. Janssens, U. Schultz, V. Zaytsev

Development of a Web Platform for Code Peer-Testing

M. Maarek, L. McGregor

Lost in Space and Time? Quantifying the Size of Unit Test Execution Histories

Mohammadreza Azadmanesh, Matthias Hauswirth

Modeling Programming Problem Solving Through Interactive Worked Examples

Dastyni Loksa, Andrew J. Ko

OpenMP or Pthreads: Which is Better for Beginners?

Pedro Bruel, Paulo Meirelles, Raphael Cobe, Alfredo Goldman, Pedro Bruel

Preliminary Analysis of Contestant Performance for a Code Hunt Contest

A. Clark, J. Wells, A. Astorga, A. Xie, J. Coleman-Lands, T. Xie

Preliminary Analysis of REST API Style Guidelines

Lauren Murphy, Tosin Alliyu, Mary Beth Kery, Brad A Myers

Preventing Babel: Rectifying the Trend of Programming Language Divergence

Alon Amid, Borivoje Nikolic, Alon Amid

Programming Robot Manipulators with Tangible Blocks

Yasaman Sefidgar, Maya Cakmak

Sympathy for the Devil: Reified Collection of Runtime Errors

Tommaso Dal Sasso, Andrei Chiş, Andrea Mocci, Tudor Girba, Michele Lanza, Tommaso Dal Sasso

The Uses of Interactive Explorers for Web APIs

John Daughtry, Andrew Macvean, Luke Church

What do we know about presenting human-friendly output from program analysis tools? A Scoping Review of Selected Proceedings from HCI + SE/PL

Titus Barik, Chris Parnin, Emerson Murphy-Hill

What’s the Effect of Projectional Editors for Creating Words For Unknown Languages? A Controlled Experiment

Niklas Hollmann, Thorben Roßenbeck, Mark Kunze, Liron Türk, Stefan Hanenberg