Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Dynamic languages symposium - DLS '05

Abstract

In industry, static languages (such as Java, C++ and C#) are much more widely used than their dynamic counterparts (like CLOS, Python, Self, Perl, php or Smalltalk). So it appears as though dynamic language concepts were forgotten and lost the race.But this is not the case. Java and C#, the latest mainstream static languages, popularized to a certain extent dynamic language features such as garbage collection, portability and (limited forms of) reflection. In the near future, we expect this dynamicity to increase even further. E.g., it is getting clearer year after year that pervasive computing is becoming the rule and that concepts such as meta programming, reflection, mobility, dynamic reconfigurability and distribution are becoming increasingly popular. All of these features are the domain of dynamic languages, and hence it is only logical that more dynamic language concepts have to be taken up by static languages, or that dynamic languages can make a breakthrough.Currently, the dynamic language community is fragmented, split over a multitude of paradigms (from functional over logic to object-oriented), languages and syntaxes. This fragmentation severely hinders research as well as acceptance, and results in either language wars or, even worse, language ignorance. The goal of this symposium is to provide a highly visible, international forum for researchers working on dynamic features and languages. To reach this goal we explicitly invited submissions from any paradigm (object-oriented, functional, logic, ...), and put together a high-profile program committee with representatives from all kinds of dynamic languages. From the 14 high-quality submissions we received, 5 excellent papers were accepted for the symposium. Every paper was reviewed by at least 4 reviewers, and by at least 6 reviewers for papers where committee members participated.It's my hope that this first edition of the Dynamic Languages Symposium is but the beginning of a series of symposia that enables the myriad of dynamic languages out there to come out of the closet and show what they are made of.