IFIP Working Conference on Domain Specific Languages (DSL WC)

July 15-17, 2009, Oxford

New! Local information, a conference blog, and a list of accepted papers are now available.

Newer! The conference blog was started during the conference, and will continue to be available for discussions and comments on the papers, talks, and conference for the foreseeable future.

Call for Papers

Domain-specific languages are emerging as a fundamental component of software engineering practice. DSLs are often introduced when new domains such as web-scripting or markup come into existence, but it is also common to see DSLs being introduced and adopted for traditional domains such as parsing and data description. Developing software using DSLs has many benefits. DSLs are often designed based on existing notations that are already in use by experts in a given domain. As such, successful DSLs often reduce or eliminate the effort needed to transform the concept or innovation produced by the domain expert into an executable artifact or even a deliverable software product. DSL implementations can capture and mechanize a significant portion of the repetitive and mechanical tasks that a domain expert traditionally needed to perform in order to produce an executable. DSLs can in many cases capture and make widely available special expertise that only top specialists in a given domain might have. By capturing expert knowledge and reducing repetitive tasks, DSLs often also lead to software that is significantly more portable, more reliable and more understandable than it would otherwise be.

DSLs can be viewed as having a dual role to general-purpose languages: whereas general purpose languages try to do everything as well as possible, DSLs are designed to find a domain where they can solve some class of problems -- no matter how small -- in the best possible way. Widely known examples of DSLs include Matlab, Verilog, SQL, LINQ, JavaScript, PERL, HTML, Open GL, Tcl/Tk, Macromedia Director, Mathematica/Maple, AutoLisp/AutoCAD, XSLT, RPM, Make, lex/yacc, LaTeX, PostScript, Excel, among many others. But while these tools have been widely successful, they still fall short of realizing the full idea behind them. The goal of this conference is to explore the extent to which incorporating modern principles of language design and software engineering can benefit existing and future domain-specific languages.

The ultimate goal of using DSLs is to improve programmer productivity and software quality. Often, this is achieved by reducing the cost of initial software development as well as maintenance costs. These improvements - programs being easier to write and maintain - materialize as a result of domain-specific guarantees, analyses, testing techniques, verification techniques, and optimizations.

Paper Criteria

Papers are sought addressing the research problems, fundamental principles, and practical techniques of DSLs, including but not limited to:

Foundations, including semantics, formal methods, type theory, and complexity theory
Language design, ranging from concrete syntax to semantic and typing issues
Software engineering, including domain analysis, software design, and round-trip engineering
Software processes, including metrics for software and language evaluation
Implementation techniques, including parsing, compiling, and program generation
Program analysis and automated transformation
Reverse engineering, re-engineering, design discovery, automated refactoring
Hardware/software codesign
Programming environments, including visual languages, debuggers, and testing infrastructure
Teaching DSLs and the use of DSLs in teaching
Case studies, including engineering, bioinformatics, hardware specification languages, parallel computing languages, real-time and embedded systems, and networked and distributed domains

Papers will be judged on the depth of their insight and the extent to which they translate specific experience into general lessons for domain-specific language designers and implementers, and software engineers. Papers can range from the practical to the theoretical; where appropriate, they should refer to actual languages, tools, and techniques, provide pointers to full definitions and implementations, and include empirical data on results.

Important Dates

July 23rd, 2008: First Call for Papers
November 12th, 2008: Final Call for Papers
December 14th, 2008: Abstract submission due. Firm, will not have any extensions
December 21st, 2008: Paper submission deadline. Firm, will not have any extensions
February 23rd, 2009: Author notification of decisions
March 22nd, 2009: Camera ready manuscripts due

Instructions for Authors

Proceedings will be published in the Springer LNCS series. Submissions and final manuscripts are to follow the LNCS stylesheet formatting guidelines, and are not to exceed 25 pages. Please submit your manuscripts online using the EasyChair conference management system.