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
Accepted Papers
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.
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.
Mon 23 OctDisplayed time zone: Tijuana, Baja California change
08:30 - 10:00 | |||
08:30 30mDay opening | Welcome and Introduction PLATEAU | ||
09:00 60mTalk | PLATEAU Keynote: Usability Design Space in Programming by Examples PLATEAU Sumit Gulwani Microsoft Research | ||
10:30 - 12:00 | |||
10:30 20mTalk | The Uses of Interactive Explorers for Web APIs PLATEAU Pre-print | ||
10:50 20mTalk | One λ at a time: What do we know about presenting human-friendly output from program analysis tools? PLATEAU Pre-print | ||
11:10 20mTalk | 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 20mTalk | Development of a Web Platform for Code Peer-Testing PLATEAU Pre-print | ||
13:30 - 15:00 | Language, DSL, and Feature DesignPLATEAU at Regency D Chair(s): Joshua Sunshine Carnegie Mellon University | ||
13:30 20mTalk | 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 15mTalk | Programming Robot Manipulators with Tangible Blocks PLATEAU Pre-print | ||
14:05 20mTalk | 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 20mTalk | 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 15mTalk | Preventing Babel: Rectifying the Trend of Programming Language Divergence PLATEAU Pre-print | ||
Instructions for Authors
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.
Accepted Papers
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
| Mon 23 Oct 2017 PLATEAU Workshop |
| Mon 16 Oct 2017 Camera Ready Deadline |
| Tue 5 Sep 2017 Author Notification |
| Tue 8 Aug 2017 Paper Submission |
Craig Anslow
Victoria University of Wellington
New Zealand
Peggy Chi
Google Inc.
United States
Elena Glassman
UC Berkeley
Stefan Hanenberg
University of Duisburg-Essen
Thomas LaToza
George Mason University
United States
Michael Lee
New Jersey Institute of Technology
United States
Emerson Murphy-Hill
North Carolina State University
Emma Söderberg
Google
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