Go Out With a Bang
aka Declare VictoryThe idea would be to have one last OOPSLA. Invite a bunch of the best talkspapersdemos/ideas etc. Talk about what was great, what was done well, what we should carry into new communities etc.
Make the theme celebrating the tremendous impact that OOPSLA had, and to celebrate the many things it did right in terms of building a vibrant community, around new ideas, connected to practice, cutting through boundaries, paying attention to impact and so on.
Of course this idea is crazy. Any number of people have a significant part of their career invested in OOPSLA being an ongoing event.
But its worth mentioning, because you'd probably put together a great conference, and a celebration of one of the most fun, influential and best run communities in the field.
--gregorkiczales
i second this proposal. great idea gregor! -- Matthias
Yeah! I can see the cathartic beauty of it. Do 2005 - the 20th - and then be done with it. We can do the same as PLDI and collect the "best 20 OOPSLA papers" and publish them as a book. What's more this could solve the problem of the technical programme next year: why not just invite the authors of the 20 best papers to be the tech programme for the last OOPSLA?
On the other hand - this year at least our group in NZ has bunch of PhD students really excited about getting to OOPSLA this year. Just because the forty- or fifty-somethings are jaded doesn't mean all the twenty-somethings are.
ECOOP & JAOO seem to be carrying on quite fine, so this does come back to precisely what the underlying issues & aims with OOPSLA are.I think the idea of scrapping OOPSLA "with a bang" is very radical indeed. It strikes me that just because objects seem less mysterious it doesn't mean that object-research is complete, or even that victory can be declared. As JamesNoble said, ECOOP is still running strong. There are still papers that are being written that are only "OOPSLA" papers, and could go nowhere else, and that will likely be the case for some time. The number of submissions to the technical track this year points to that. I think the strength of OOPSLA is that it focuses a lot on the practicality and immediate usefulness of ideas, and so forms a natural bridge between academia and industry in a way that isn't really done elsewhere for this body of research.
As someone who's just starting out, I can say that I greatly value the mix of people and topics that are found at OOPSLA. It's an incredible, and unique, resource.