SPLASH is a new ACM SIGPLAN conference dedicated to the art and science of software development. Its first official instance was in October of 2010. SPLASH has its roots in OOPSLA, a long-standing research conference in Object-Oriented Programming.
In 1985 a group of 4 pioneers in object-oriented programming decided to plan and organize a North American conference on object-oriented programming systems. The group was Adele Goldberg, Tom Love, David Smith, and Allen Wirfs-Brock, and the conference was OOPSLA – Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications. The first OOPSLA was held at the Marriott Hotel in Portland, Oregon, in November 1986. About 600 people attended, about 50 papers were presented, and the attendees heard about Smalltalk, Lisp, Flavors, CommonLoops, Emerald, Trellis/Owl, Mach, Prolog, ABCL/1, prototypes, and distributed/concurrent programming from people like Danny Bobrow, Gregor Kiczales, Rick Rashid, Andrew Black, Dave Ungar, Henry Lieberman, Ralph Johnson, Dan Ingalls, Ward Cunningham, Kent Beck, Ivar Jacobson, and Bertrand Meyer.
This wide range of topics and researchers set the tone for the conference, which became the forum for some of the most important software developments over the last couple of decades. OOPSLA was the incubator for CRC cards, CLOS, design patterns, Self, the agile methodologies, service-oriented architectures, wikis, Unified Modeling Language (UML), test driven design (TDD), refactoring, Java, dynamic compilation, and aspect-oriented programming, to name just some of them. Never only about objects but never straying far from them, the conference grew from 600 attendees to around 2500 at its peak, and is still strong at around 1300 even after spawning off a series of patterns conferences, Eclipse and EclipseCon, the Agile conference, and AOSD.
Toward the end of the 1990s – in the wake of successes by Smalltalk and Java in business and C++ in engineering – OO went mainstream, and OOPSLA transitioned from a conference that worked at making OO practical and understandable to one that works at the problems of a changing computing world, both by devising new techniques and technologies and by extending and expanding theory. What has remained unchanged is a passion for innovation and a habit of building communities.
In the early 2000's, many people in the OOPSLA community felt that OOPSLA would benefit from a new track publishing papers focused on innovative ideas beyond OO, and on forms of papers that normally wouldn't be accepted at OOPSLA. Speerheaded by Richard Gabriel, Onward! was born. Onward! was the first effort among ACM-sponsored conferences to give voice to "idea papers" within a framework of academic acceptability. Many other conferences have followed suit.
By the mid 2000's it was clear that the organizational structure binding OOPSLA and Onward! together needed to be refactored not just to allow these 2 tracks to co-exist on a equal basis but also to provide a framework for including new paper tracks, keeping the conference new and fresh. After several community discussions, it was finally decided to create a new umbrella conference -- SPLASH, the ACM Conference on Systems, Programming, Languages and Applications: Software for Humanity.
Since 2010, SPLASH has been the conceptual and administrative umbrella for OOPSLA, Onward!, a variety of other program events such as the Educators' Symposium, Experience Reports, Workshops, Panels, etc., and a variety of colocated events. OOPSLA is now 'just' the technical track of high-quality research papers that had been at the core of the OOPSLA Conference from the beginning. At the same time, OOPSLA has broadened the scope of topics of interest well beyond OO, and currently accepts a variety of programming-related papers. By creating SPLASH as the umbrella conference, the community can now sustain new paper tracks that don't fit in OOPSLA but that are closely related, therefore giving itself the space to innovate, just like it did with Onward!
SPLASH is proud of its OOPSLA heritage of creativity and openness.
The SPLASH website for the current year is always available at www.splashcon.org/.
SPLASH 2013 Conference Chair: Antony Hosking & Patrick Eugster OOPSLA Program Chair: Cristina V. Lopes Onward! Program Chair: Robert Hirschfeld DLS Chair: Carl Friedrich Bolz Indianopolis, Indiana www.splashcon.org/2013/ |
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SPLASH 2012 Conference Chair: Gary T. Leavens OOPSLA Program Chair: Matthew B. Dwyer Onward! Program Chair: Jonathan Edwards DLS Chair: Alessandro Wrath Tucson, Arizona www.splashcon.org/2012/ |
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SPLASH 2011 Conference Chair: Cristina V. Lopes OOPSLA Program Chair: Kathleen Fisher Onward! Program Chair: Eelco Visser Wavefront Program Chair: Allen Wirfs-Brock Portland, Oregon www.splashcon.org/2011/ |
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SPLASH 2010 Conference Chair: William R. Cook OOPSLA Program Chair: Martin Rinard Onward! Program Chair: Kevin Sullivan Reno/Tahoe Nevada www.splashcon.org/2010/ |
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OOPSLA 2009 Conference Chair: Shail Arora Program Chair: Gary Leavens Onward! Chair: Bernd Bruegge Orlando, Florida www.oopsla.org/oopsla2009/ |
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OOPSLA 2008 Conference Chair: Gail E. Harris Program Chair: Gregor Kiczales Onward! Chair: Dirk Riehle Nashville, Tennessee www.oopsla.org/oopsla2008_final/ |
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OOPSLA 2007 Conference Chair: Richard P. Gabriel Program Chair: David Bacon Onward! Chair: Cristina V. Lopes Montréal, Québec, Canada www.oopsla.org/oopsla2007/ |
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OOPSLA 2006 Conference Chair: Peri Tarr Program Chair: William Cook Onward! Chair: Robert Biddle Portland, Oregon www.oopsla.org/2006/ |
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OOPSLA 2005 Conference Chair: Ralph Johnson Program Chair: Richard P. Gabriel San Diego, California www.oopsla.org/2005/ShowPage.do?id=Home |
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OOPSLA 2004 Conference Chair: John Vlissides Program Chair: Doug Schmidt Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada www.oopsla.org/2004/ |
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OOPSLA 2003 Conference Chair: Ron Crocker Program Chair: Guy L. Steele, Jr. Anaheim, California www.oopsla.org/2003/ |
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OOPSLA 2002 Conference Chair: Mamdouh Ibrahim Program Chair: Satoshi Matsuoka Seattle, Washington www.oopsla.org/2002/ |
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OOPSLA 2001 Conference Chair: Linda Northrop Program Chair: John Vlissides Tampa, Florida www.oopsla.org/2001/ |
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OOPSLA 2000 Conference Chair: Mary Beth Rosson Program Chair: Doug Lea Minneapolis, Minnesota www.oopsla.org/2000/ |
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OOPSLA 1999 Conference Chair: Brent Hailpern Program Chair: Linda Northrop Denver, Colorado www.sigplan.org/oopsla/oopsla99/ |
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OOPSLA 1998 Conference Chair: Bjorn Freeman-Benson Program Chair: Craig Chambers Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada www.acm.org/sigplan/oopsla/oopsla98/ |
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OOPSLA 1997 Conference Chair: Mary Loomis Program Chair: Toby Bloom Atlanta, Georgia www.acm.org/sigplan/oopsla/oopsla97/fp.html |
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OOPSLA 1996 Conference Chair: Lougie Anderson Program Chair: James Coplien San José, California www.sigplan.org/oopsla/oopsla96/oopsla96.html |
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OOPSLA 1995 Conference Chair: Rebecca J. Wirfs-Brock Program Chair: Mary Loomis Austin, Texas |
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OOPSLA 1994 Conference Chair: Jeff McKenna Program Chair: J. Eliot B. Moss Portland, Oregon |
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OOPSLA 1993 Conference Chair: Timlynn Babitsky and Jim Salmons Program Chair: Ralph Johnson Washington, D.C. |
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OOPSLA 1992 Conference Chair: John Pugh Program Chair: Rebecca J. Wirfs-Brock Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
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OOPSLA 1991 Conference Chair: John Richards Program Chair: Alan Snyder Phoenix, Arizona |
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OOPSLA 1990 Conference Chair: David Thomas and Pierre Cointe Program Chair: Akinori Yonezawa Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
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OOPSLA 1989 Conference Chair: George Bosworth Program Chair: Kent Beck New Orleans, Louisiana |
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OOPSLA 1988 Conference Chair: Alan Otis and Larry Tesler Program Chair: Kurt Schmucker San Diego, California |
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OOPSLA 1987 Conference Chair: Adele Goldberg and Chet Wisinski Program Chair: Jerry L. Archibald Orlando, Florida |
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OOPSLA 1986 Conference Chair: Daniel G Bobrow and Alan Purdy Program Chair: Daniel Ingalls Portland, Oregon |
ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications