� � 2nd Workshop on Revival of Dynamic Languages (RDL)

� � � � � in conjunction with ECOOP�06

�� � � � � � Nantes, France, July 3/4

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The advent of Java and C# has been a major breakthrough in the adoption of some important object-oriented language characteristics. It turned academic features like interfaces, garbage-collection and meta-programming into technologies generally accepted by industry. But the massive adoption of these languages now also gives rise to a growing awareness of their limitations. On the one hand, r! esearchers and practitionners feel themselves wrestling with the stati c type systems, the overly complex abstract grammars, the simplistic concurrency provisions, the very limited reflection capabilities and the absence of higher-order language constructs such as delegation, closures and continuations. On the other hand, dynamic languages like Ruby and Python are getting ever more popular. Therefore, it is time for academia to move on and to help pushing such languages into the mainstream. On the one hand, this requires us to look back and pick up what is out there in existing dynamic languages (such as Lisp, Scheme, Smalltalk, Self,...) to be recovered for the future. On the other hand, it requires us to further explore the power of future dynamic language constructs in the context of new challenging fields such as aspect-orientation, pervasive computing, mobile code, context-aware computing, etc.

The goal of this workshop is to act as a forum where we can discuss new advances in the conception, implementation and application of object-oriented languages that radically diverge from the �statically typed class-based reflectionless doctrine�. The goal of the workshop is to discuss new as well as older �forgotten� languages and language features in this� context. Topics of interest include, but are certainly not limited to:

- agents, actors, active object, distribution, concurrency and mobility

- delegation, prototypes, mixins

- first-class closures, continuations, environments, coroutines

- reflection and meta-programming

- (dynamic) aspects for dynamic languages

- higher-order objects & messages

- ...� other exotic dynamic features which you would categorize as OO.

- multi-paradigm & static/dynamic-marriages

- (concurrent/distributed/mobile/aspect) virtual machines

- optimisation of dynamic languages

- automated reasoning about dynamic languages

- �regular� syntactic schemes (cf. S-expressions, Smalltalk, Self)

- Smalltalk, Python, Ruby, Scheme, Lisp, Self, ABCL, Prolog, ...

- ... any topic relevant in applying and/or supporting dynamic languages.

Workshop Organization

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This workshop lasts one day. The goal is to have as much discussion as possible. Therefore, the presentation of position papers will be restricted to� selected ones that are especially provocative and/or interesting for a broad audience. Depending on the interests of the audience we will split up in working groups. But instead of forcing people into specific groups beforehand, we would like to defer the formation of groups to the workshop itself.

Attendance

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Prospective attendees are requested to submit a position paper or an es! say (max 10 pages, references included) on a topic relevant to the wor kshop to Wolfgang De Meuter (wdmeuter@vub.ac.be). Submissions are demanded to be in .pdf format. The position papers will be made available for downloading from the workshop website. Technical as well as throught provoking submissions are wellcomed.

Important Dates

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Position paper due: 1 April 2006

Notification of acceptance: 1 May 2006

Workshop: July! 3rd or 4th, 2006

Organizers

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1. Wolfgang De Meuter (primary contact)

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Laboratorium voor Programmeerkunde

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