USENIX - Sixth Annual Tcl/Tk Conference- Announcement and Call for Papers

Important Dates

Paper, Demonstrations, and Panel Proposals:	April 8, 1998
Acceptance notification:	May 11, 1998
Poster submissions:	June 26, 1998
Camera-ready copy:	July 28, 1998

Conference Organizers:

Co-chairs:
Don Libes, NIST
Michael McLennan, Bell Labs Innovations for Lucent Technologies

Program Committee:
Dave Beazley, University of Utah
De Clarke, UCO/LICK Observatory
Dave Griffin, Digital Equipment Corporation
Mark Harrison, AsiaInfo Holdings, Inc.
Jeffrey Hobbs, Siemens AG
George Howlett, Bell Labs Innovations for Lucent Technologies
Ray Johnson, Sun Microsystems Laboratories, Inc.
Kevin Kenny, General Electric Corporate R& D
Tom Phelps, University of California at Berkeley
Tom Poindexter, Talus Technologies, Inc.
John Reekie, University of California at Berkeley
Forest Rouse, ICEM CFD Engineering
Alex Safonov, University of Minnesota
Henry Spencer, SP Systems

The Sixth Annual Tcl/Tk Conference is a forum to:

bring together Tcl/Tk researchers and practitioners
publish and present current work involving Tcl/Tk
learn about the latest developments in Tcl/Tk
plan for future Tcl/Tk related developments

The conference program will include formal paper and panel presentations, poster and demonstration sessions, works in progress (WIP) sessions, Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions, and tutorials.

Overview and Forms of Participation

All forms of participation provide an opportunity to report on original Tcl/Tk research. The audience is practitioners and researchers who are experienced users of Tcl/Tk. For this reason, reports on experiences and applications must draw out lessons for other Tcl/Tk developers. Topics include, but are not limited to:

System extensions
Novel Tcl/Tk-based applications
Experience reports on building applications in Tcl/Tk
Comparative evaluations of Tcl/Tk and other languages or toolkits for building applications
Use of different programming paradigms in Tcl/Tk and proposals for new directions.

Papers

Papers should be concise. Omit extraneous or redundant text. Length is not a direct factor in judging paper quality; however, historically, most papers are 12 pages or less. Consider trimming longer papers, possibly by splitting into separate and more focused papers. Authors of accepted papers will have twenty minutes to present the paper at the conference. Full papers written in English must be submitted for review. Authors are encouraged to include black-and- white figures in their papers.

The program committee will review and evaluate papers according to the following criteria:

Quantity and quality of novel content
Relevance and interest to the Tcl/Tk community
Quality of presentation of content in the paper
Suitability of content for presentation at the conference

Papers should be 8-12 single-spaced pages and should present a cohesive piece of work. Papers so short as to be considered extended abstracts will not receive full consideration. Papers may report on commercial or non-commercial systems, but those with blatant marketing content will not be accepted.

Application and experience papers need to strike a balance between background on the application domain and the relevance of Tcl/Tk to the application. Application and experience papers should clearly explain how the application or experience illustrates a novel use of Tcl/Tk, and what lessons the Tcl/Tk community can derive from the application or experience to apply to their own development efforts.

This conference requires that papers not be submitted simultaneously to other conferences or publications, and that submitted papers not be previously published or accepted papers subsequently published elsewhere for a period of one year after acceptance. Papers accompanied by non-disclosure agreement forms will be returned to the author(s) unread. All submissions are held in the highest confidentiality prior to publication in the Proceedings, both as a matter of policy and in accord with the U. S. Copyright Act of 1976.

Posters

Poster sumissions provide an opportunity to present interesting or preliminary results. They are the ideal category for material that is better suited for discussion in small groups as opposed to large groups. Posters will be displayed during one day of the conference. A poster session will provide an opportunity for attendees to interact with poster authors individually and in small groups. Display space will be approximately 3 feet wide by 4 feet high. Poster authors should submit a draft of their poster's contents along with a one-page abstract. Abstracts of accepted posters will be published in the conference proceedings.

Demonstrations

There will be a demonstration reception one evening. Demonstrations will be held in parallel, allowing attendees to more closely interact with the demonstrators. Space will be available for demonstrations in the following categories:

Reviewed demonstrations

will be given a demonstration station for the entire session and
will have an abstract published in the conference proceedings.

Submissions should include both a one-page abstract and six copies of a video-tape (VHS) showing the demonstration. Some demonstrations may also be scheduled for a conference session.

Informal demonstrations

will be assigned a specific time during the demonstration session.

Authors of accepted papers as well as those with demonstration-ready Works-in-Progress are encouraged to sign up for informal demonstration time slots. More information on the facilities available for informal demonstrations will be provided in the registration materials and on the conference Web site.

Demonstrations of commercial products of interest to the Tcl/Tk community are encouraged. The abstract for the proceedings, however, should avoid commercial content (i.e., it should not include pricing and sales information or marketing content).

Panel Proposals

The program committee is organizing panel discussions of up to 90 minutes. Proposals should include a list of confirmed panelists, a title and format, and a panel description with position statements from each panelist. Panels should have no more than four speakers, including the panel moderator, and should allow time for substantial interaction with attendees. Panels are not presentations of related research papers. Papers should be submitted individually and the program committee will group them into sessions of related material.

Works-in-Progress Presentations and Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions

Works-in-Progress (WIP) presentations and Birds-of-a-Feather sessions (BOFs) are not reviewed. Slots for both are available on a first-come, first-served basis starting in August 1998. Specific instructions for reserving WIP and BOF time slots will be provided in the registration information in June 1998. Some WIP and BOF time slots will be held open for on-site reservation, so we encourage all attendees with interesting work in progress to consider presenting that work at the conference.

Tutorials

On Monday and Tuesday, September 14-15, USENIX's well-respected tutorial program will offer intensive, immediately useful, half- and full-day sessions. Skilled instructors who are hands-on experts in their topic areas present both introductory and advanced tutorials.

How to Submit a Paper, Demonstration, or Panel
Proposal

We are accepting most conference submissions electronically, via email. Paper, poster, panel and demonstration proposal submissions should be sent in two forms:

Postscript or PDF files formatted for an 8.5 x 11 inch page with 1 inch margins. (Be sure that it will print on a variety of printers.)
Plain text or HTML (standard markups only, no browser-specific tags).

Send submissions to: tcl98papers@usenix. org. If accepted, both electronic and camera-ready hardcopy of the final version (full paper, poster abstract, or panel summary and position statements) will be required. Please refer to the detailed submission instructions.

Demonstrations should also submit six copies of a VHS videotape showing the demonstration. The videotapes are for review purposes only, and cannot be returned. If accepted, both camera-ready and electronic versions of the abstract will be required.

Postal Address:

Tcl/Tk 98 Conference
USENIX Association
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 213
Berkeley CA 94710
Phone: 510.528.8649

More information on the conference will be available at the conference Web site.

Registration Materials

Materials containing all details of the technical and tutorial programs, registration fees and forms, and hotel information will be available in June, 1998. If you wish to receive the registration materials, please contact: