Dreamsongs Wiki

CelebrateApplications

The A in OOPSLA is Applications, and I think it has always been short-changed. I'd like to celebrate applications. This is perhaps related to OntologicallyOriented computing.

My concrete suggestion is to get a bunch (3-12) of people who have developed interesting OO applications. I'm interested in

topics like genetic engineering, control of power plants, robotics, satellites, bond trading, cell phones; anything that

is not likely to be taught in a course in a CS department. They will describe what their application does (some people call

this "design") and how the objects work to carry it out (OOPSLA people call this "design"). They have an hour to talk with half an hour for questions. Each one will work closely with an OOPSLA

insider who will help them to present their system in a way that will be attractive to and understandable by OOPSLA attenders.

It will not be easy to find these people, but if we start now then we should be able to do it.

This is perhaps related to OntologicallyOriented Computing because each presenter should discuss the abstractions that were important to them. -RalphJohnson

Sounds great. Especially if I'm not fingered to shepherd one of these things :-)

And afterwards, if there were proccedings or a book, people in CS departments (students at least) could read it and benefit from them
JamesNoble.

I also miss Application (and System) papers a lot. What Ralph suggested is, of course, a good idea but I would like to see these papers in the main technical treck.

I've heard more than once people saying: "this paper describes an extremely interesting OO aplication but it doesn't bring new ideas to the state of the art in OO so we shouldn't accept it." Then we get stuck with those boring papers that do bring new (small and incremental) ideas but nobody cares to read them or to attend their presentation.

-FabioKon

That's one of the problems that OOPSLAEssays solves. By making papers about applications essays - were program committee members to complain, for example - the sanctity of the technical papers can be protected. -rpg

This is one of the good things about Onward! that it is separate from the technical

programme and does not affect its sanctity. I'm happy for Onward! to continue,

and ideally grow, but this would not mean, for example, that we couldn't start

another sepearate stream, EmergingTechnologies say, that was to CelebrateApplications, was not so research focused, that still had papers in a longer proceedings, etc. The IntruigingTechnologies stream that ran in OOPSLA 2001 acted as a SalonDesRefuses, taking papers - often application papers - bounced from the main tech programme; yes drew hundreds more people than the tech sessions. - JamesKjx
In the past, there have been oopsla experience reports where they've talked about interesting application designs and challenges. Perhaps many of you who have commented already on this topic have never gone to many of the practitioner reports. As a past member of several practitioner report committees and chairs of several other ones, I've always been one to look for those type of experiences, and we've collected a few of them that make for interesting design case studies (and I've shepherded a few of them, too). I really like those reports where people talk about how their design ideas evolved over time, how they adapted frameworks over time, how they solved problems (and then reflect on what they learned). We have had a few of these kinds of reports but probably haven't advertised them in a way that any of you would go and listen to them. Why not call them Design Experiences. I do believe they need shepherding and would really like to be involved in that kind of work. RebeccaWirfsBrock

I like both Ralph's and Rebecca's ideas. Have seen some great practitioners reports and made interesting contacts while reviewing for the agile conference. Was not at the conference and do not know how the sessions were run. Did a practioner's report once at OOPSLA -- and had like the other reports very small audience, scheduled next to a Kent Beck vaudeville (quiz). I think the reports sessions could benefit from bringing the reports together and encouraging discussion -- report linked to panel like Ralph organized a couple of years in a row on good and bad stories ... thinking while typing.

For the OntologyOriented session -- I would LOVE that one -- we would need to hunt for those examples and invite those people rather than sollicit papers, I think.

Would live to help with any of these. MartineDevos

I like these ideas too. It occurs to me it isn't just an Oopsla thing: we academics do not empahsise applications sufficiently.

We could have whole case-study courses, for example. Should have.

On the other hand, I fear that the whole community lusts too much for the next big thing. People want new, even when they don't understand old. This is a hard and important problem that underlies the Oopsla situation. Big and good ideas like Frameworks and Patterns make a splash, and then too many people lose interest long before the ideas are fully taken in and explored. It's sad.

It's the new frontier. So what to do? One way would be to ignore such people. But we like the buzz of big numbers, and they pay. Another way would be to re-market and re-cycle. It's not Applications, it's um, Design Examplars. It's new! It's the next big thing! It's spiral learning on an industry scale...

RobertBiddle