ML 2021

ML is a large family of programming languages that includes Standard ML, OCaml, F#, CakeML, SML#, Manticore, MetaOCaml, JoCaml, Alice ML, Dependent ML, Flow Caml, Reason ML, and many others. All ML languages, besides a great deal of syntax, share several fundamental traits. They are all higher-order, mostly pure, and typed, with algebraic and other data types. Their type systems inherit from Hindley-Milner. The development of these languages has inspired a large amount of computer science research and influenced many programming languages, including Haskell, Scala, Rust, Clojure, and many others.

ML workshops have been held in affiliation with ICFP continuously since 2005. This workshop specifically aims to recognize the entire extended ML family and to provide the forum to present and discuss common issues, both practical (compilation techniques, implementations of concurrency and parallelism, programming for the Web, modern operating system and network services, platform services – build, document, test, deploy) and theoretical (fancy types, module systems, metaprogramming, etc.) The scope of the workshop includes all aspects of the design, semantics, theory, application, implementation, and teaching of the members of the ML family. We also encourage presentations from related languages (such as Haskell, Scala, Rust, Nemerle, Links, Koka, F*, Eff, ATS, etc), to exchange experience of further developing ML ideas.

The ML family workshop will be held in close coordination with the OCaml Users and Developers Workshop.

The ML workshop will be a virtual workshop this year.

News

• March 22nd Excited to announce that Don Syme (Microsoft) will be giving this year’s opening keynote, about the history of the F# programming language

Please contact the PC chair (Jonathan Protzenko) with any questions.

Accepted Papers

Call for Presentations

Format

The ML 2021 workshop will continue the informal approach followed since 2010. Presentations are selected by the program committee from submitted abstracts. There are no published proceedings, so contributions may be submitted for publication elsewhere. We expect research presentations of original and novel work, but emphasize that rigorous descriptions do not prevent preliminary or surprising work: we hope to encourage exciting (if unpolished) research and deliver a lively workshop atmosphere.

Each presentation should take 20-25 minutes, except demos, which should take 10-15 minutes. The exact time will be decided based on the number of accepted submissions. The presentations will likely be recorded.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the workshop will take place online.

Scope

We seek research presentations on topics including (but not limited to):

• Language design: abstraction, higher forms of polymorphism, concurrency, distribution and mobility, staging, extensions for semi-structured data, generic programming, object systems, etc.
• Implementation: compilers, interpreters, type checkers, partial evaluators, runtime systems, garbage collectors, foreign function interfaces, etc.
• Type systems: inference, effects, modules, contracts, specifications and assertions, dynamic typing, error reporting, etc.
• Applications: case studies, experience reports, pearls, etc.
• Environments: libraries, tools, editors, debuggers, cross-language interoperability, functional data structures, etc.
• Semantics: operational and denotational semantics, program equivalence, parametricity, mechanization, etc.

Four kinds of submissions will be accepted: Research Presentations, Experience Reports, Demos, and Informed Positions.

• Research Presentations: Research presentations should describe new ideas, experimental results, or significant advances in ML-related projects. We especially encourage presentations that describe work in progress, that outline a future research agenda, or that encourage lively discussion. These presentations should be structured in a way which can be, at least in part, of interest to (advanced) users.
• Experience Reports: Users are invited to submit Experience Reports about their use of ML and related languages. These presentations do not need to contain original research but they should tell an interesting story to researchers or other advanced users, such as an innovative or unexpected use of advanced features or a description of the challenges they are facing or attempting to solve.
• Demos: Live demonstrations or short tutorials should show new developments, interesting prototypes, or work in progress, in the form of tools, libraries, or applications built on or related to ML and related languages. (You will need to provide all the hardware and software required for your demo; the workshop organisers are only able to provide a projector.)
• Informed Positions: A justified argument for or against a language feature. The argument must be substantiated, either theoretically (e.g. by a demonstration of (un)soundness, an inference algorithm, a complexity analysis), empirically or by substantial experience. Personal experience is accepted as justification so long as it is extensive and illustrated with concrete examples.

Important dates:

• Thursday May 27th: Abstract submission deadline
• Thursday June 18th: Author notification
• Thursday August 26th (tentative): ML Family Workshop

Submission details

Submissions should be between one and three pages long, in PDF format, and printable on US Letter or A4 sized paper. The submission should have a short abstract and a body between 0 and 3 pages, in one- or two-column layout. The abstract should be suitable for inclusion in the workshop program. The bibliography will not be counted against the page limit. Appendices may be provided, but reviewers will only look at them if they are curious. Similarly, links to an extended presentation of the submitted work may be provided.

Submissions must be uploaded to the workshop submission website before the submission deadline (Thursday May 27th).

Finally, please be aware that the submissions may be made public – in particular, accepted submissions may be made public on the conference website. Do not include confidential information in the submitted PDF.

Coordination with the OCaml Users and Developers Workshop

The OCaml workshop is seen as more practical and is dedicated in significant part to OCaml community building and the development of the OCaml system. In contrast, the ML family workshop is not focused on any language in particular, is more research-oriented, and deals with general issues of ML-style programming and type systems. Yet there is an overlap, which we are keen to explore in various ways. The authors who feel their submission fits both workshops are encouraged to mention it at submission time or contact the program chairs.