CfP: Scheme Workshop 2009!

---

SCHEME AND FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING WORKSHOP 2009

Cambridge, Massachusetts

August 22, 2009

call for papers

http://www.schemeworkshop.org/2009/

---

The Scheme and Functional Programming Workshop showcases research and experience related to Scheme, and more broadly to all aspects of functional programming.

Areas of interest include:

• Language Design, Type Systems, Theory
• Program Development Environments, Education
• Agile Methodologies, Lightweight Software Engineering
• Applications, Implementation, and Experience
• SRFIs!

In addition to technical papers on matters of programming-language research, we encourage submissions that present experience or innovation with a particular project. The key criterion for any paper--technical or not--is that it makes a contribution from which other practitioners can benefit.

Dates:

Dates are firm, and will not be extended. Please plan accordingly.

• Submission Deadline: June 5, 2009 (FIRM)
• Author Notification: June 26, 2009
• Final Papers Due: July 24, 2009
• Workshop: August 22, 2009

Program Committee:

• John Clements, Cal Poly State University (organizer & chair)
• Dominique Boucher, Nu Echo
• Abdulaziz Ghuloum, Indiana University
• David Herman, Northeastern University
• Shriram Krishnamurthi, Brown University
• Matthew Might, University of Utah
• David Van Horn, Northeastern University

Publication Policy:

Submitted papers must have content that has not previously been published in other conferences or refereed venues, and simultaneous submission to other conferences or refereed venues is unacceptable.

Publication of a paper at this workshop is not intended to replace conference or journal publication, and does not preclude re-publication of a more complete or finished version of the paper at some later conference or in a journal.

Submission Instructions:

Your submissions should be no longer than 12 pages, including bibliography and appendices. Papers may be shorter than this limit, and the Program Committee encourages authors to submit shorter papers where appropriate.

The conference web page (URL above) contains detailed formatting instructions and LaTeX support files.

Submit your papers using the Continue 2.0 submission server, at the URL:

http://continue2.cs.brown.edu/scheme2009/

We look forward to reading your papers!

PLT Scheme version 4.1.4 is now available from

  http://plt-scheme.org/

• New libraries include `scheme/package' (for nestable static modules) and `ffi/objc' (support for Objective-C).
• New teaching support includes a "universe.ss" teachpack for connecting "worlds" over a network.
• Redex now supports automatic test-case generation. Specify a predicate that should hold of your reduction system, and Redex will attempt to falsify it. See 'redex-check' in the manual for more details.
• Improvements to the run-time system include better and more reliable memory-limit tracking, function contracts that preserve tail recursion in many cases, native debugging backtraces on x86_64, and performance improvements.
• Improved libraries include enhancements to `scheme/sandbox', better handling of zero-sized matches by `regexp-split' and friends, an `equal<%>' interface for specifying equality on class instances (and more general support for attaching properties to interfaces), equality (via `equal<%>') for image objects, and refinements to `scheme/foreign' to support atomic operations and function-pointer conversions.

[Note that mirror sites can take a while to catch up with the new downloads.] Feedback Welcome.

Simple GnuPLoTting

gnuplot is a very powerful and widely used interactive data plotting program. It can generate two-dimenational and three-dimensional surface plots, either on screen or print to files with a wide-array of supported formats. If you are not familiar with it, you can get an idea of its capabilities here
A new package, gnuplot.plt, is now available on planet which allows you to programmatically interact with gnuplot processes and generate plots on the fly. The package provides a simple interface that abstracts gnuplot's quirky syntax and takes care of data marshalling using temporary files.
Without further ado, here is to every computer scientist's favorite growth curves:

(require (planet vyzo/gnuplot))
(define gplot (gnuplot-spawn))
(define data 
  (gnuplot-data
   (build-list 90
     (lambda (x) 
       (let ((x (add1 (/ x 10.))))
         (list x (log x) (* x (log x)) (expt x 2) (expt 2 x)))))))
;; png output options
(define png '(png enhanced transparent font (str arial)))
;; on screen plot
(gnuplot-set gplot '(title (str "growth curves")))
(gnuplot-plot gplot 
  #:range '(() (1 1000))
  (gnuplot-item data '(using (seq: 1 1) title (str "x") with line))
  (gnuplot-item data '(using (seq: 1 2) title (str "log(x)") with line))
  (gnuplot-item data '(using (seq: 1 3) title (str "xlog(x)") with line))
  (gnuplot-item data '(using (seq: 1 4) title (str "x^2") with line))
  (gnuplot-item data '(using (seq: 1 5) title (str "2^x") with line)))
;; replot to png
(gnuplot-hardcopy gplot "/tmp/grow.png" #:term png)
;; redo with logscale
(gnuplot-set gplot '(logscale y))
(gnuplot-replot gplot)
(gnuplot-hardcopy gplot "/tmp/loggrow.png" #:term png)

PLT Scheme v4.1.3

PLT Scheme version 4.1.3 is now available from

  http://plt-scheme.org/

This is a bug-fix release. Notable changes:

• Web Server:
  • Documentation rewritten to separate servlet APIs and server extension APIs
  • HTTPS supported on the "plt-web-server" command-line with "--ssl" option
  • Stateless servlets supported in default configuration through 'stateless interface-version
  • `web-server/servlet-env' supports top-level servlets through #:servlet-path
  • Servlets are served from anywhere in the htdocs directory by default
  • A template system based on the Scribble syntax has been added, see web-server/templates in the documentation
  And many other internal modifications to make extension easier!

[Note that mirror sites can take a while to catch up with the new downloads.] Feedback Welcome.

PLT Scheme version 4.1.2 is now available from

  http://plt-scheme.org/

This is a bug-fix release. [Note that mirror sites can take a while to catch up with the new downloads.] Feedback Welcome.

Web Application Development in PLT Scheme

Many users often post to the plt-scheme mailing list asking for introductions to Web application development in PLT Scheme. They've heard of the continuation-based PLT Web Server and want a gentle introduction. Unfortunately, there has been a distinct lack of good documentation and tutorials for the server. Taking the cue from two users: Jens Axel Soegaard and David Reynolds, we've written a tutorial with Danny Yoo.

The tutorial is available at http://docs.plt-scheme.org/continue/index.html. It walks through the creation of a blog application, introducing features slowly and culminates in an SQL-backed database for the posts. Of particular interest, is the fast start servlet setup based on the Instaservlet package from Untyped.

Please take a look and pass along this as a pointer to those who may be interested in PLT Scheme.

PLT Scheme v4.1.1

PLT Scheme version 4.1.1 is now available from

  http://plt-scheme.org/

Notable changes:

• web-server: New servlet development tutorial; quick launching of servlets from DrScheme via the `web-server/insta' language; new form abstraction through formlets.
• misc: mzc can "decompile" bytecode files; `#lang' lines wired to the top of DrScheme's definition window; improved searching in DrScheme; some foreign interface extensions.

[Note that mirror sites can take a while to catch up with the new downloads.] Feedback Welcome.