The ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP)

Next conference: ICFP 2008 (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; September 22-24, 2008)

ICFP (International Conference on Functional Programming) is an annual programming language conference. It is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) under the aegis of the ACM Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN), in association with Working Group 2.8 of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP).

ICFP provides a forum for researchers and developers to hear about the latest work on the design, implementations, principles, and uses of functional programming. The conference covers the entire spectrum of work, from practice to theory, including its peripheries.

This page is designed to be a permanent home for information about, or relevant to, ICFP. As well as information about the conference itself, it contains pointers to journals, other conferences, language implementations, research groups, and so on, that may be of interest to functional programmers. Please email suggestions for other things that might be included, or URLs to add to lists already included, to Matthew Fluet.

Contents

• Scope
• Affiliated workshops
• Programming contest
• Past and current ICFP conferences
• The ICFP organizational structure
  • Steering Committee
  • General Chair and Program Chair
• History
• SIGPLAN Awards
• Related conferences and workshops
• Related journals
• Other relevant links

Scope

ICFP seeks original papers on the art and science of functional programming. Submissions are invited on all topics from principles to practice, from foundations to features, from abstraction to application. The scope includes all languages that encourage functional programming, including both purely applicative and imperative languages, as well as languages with objects and concurrency. Particular topics of interest include:

• Applications and domain-specific languages: systems programming, scientific and numerical computing, symbolic computing, artificial intelligence, databases, graphical user interfaces, multimedia programming, scripting, system administration, distributed-systems and web programming, XML processing, security
• Foundations: formal semantics, lambda calculus, type theory, monads, continuations, control, state, effects
• Design: algorithms and data structures, modules, type systems, concurrency and distribution, components and composition, relations to object-oriented or logic programming
• Implementation: abstract machines, compile-time and run-time optimization, just-in-time compilers, memory management, parallel hardware; interfaces to foreign functions, services, components or low-level machine resources
• Transformation and analysis: abstract interpretation, partial evaluation, program transformation
• Software-development techniques: design patterns, specification, verification, validation, debugging, test generation, tracing, profiling
• Practice and experience: functional programming in education and industry
• Functional pearls: elegant, instructive examples

Affiliated Workshops

While there are no permanent affiliations between individual workshops and ICFP, a number of well-established workshops have regularly been affiliated with ICFP, including:

• The Haskell Workshop/Symposium
• Erlang Workshop
• Workshop on Scheme and Functional Programming
• Commercial Users of Functional Programming (CUFP)
• Workshop on ML
• Workshop on Mechanizing Metatheory (WMM)
• Workshop on Generic Programming (WGP)
• Functional and Declarative Programming in Education (FDPE)
• Functional Programming Developer Tracks (DEFUN)
• Programming Languages meets Program Verification (PLPV)
• MEchanized Reasoning about Languages with varIable biNding (MERLIN)
• Workshop on Curry and Functional Logic Programming

Programming Contest

The winners of the annual ICFP Programming Contest are announced at ICFP.

• Permanent Home Page of the ICFP Programming Contest

Past and Current ICFP Conferences

• 2008 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2008) (local archive)
  • Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; September 22-24, 2008
  • General Chair: James Hook; Program Chair: Peter Thiemann
• 2007 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2007) (local archive)
  • Freiburg, Germany; October 1-3, 2007
  • General Chair: Ralf Hinze; Program Chair: Norman Ramsey
• 2006 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2006) (local archive)
  • Portland, Oregon; September 18-20, 2006
  • General Chair: John Reppy; Program Chair: Julia Lawall
• 2005 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2005) (local archive)
  • Tallinn, Estonia; September 26-28, 2005
  • General Chair: Oliver Danvy; Program Chair: Benjamin Pierce
• 2004 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2004) (local archive)
  • Snowbird, Utah; September 19-22, 2004
  • General Chair: Chris Okasaki; Program Chair: Kathleen Fisher
• 2003 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2003) (local archive)
  • Uppsala, Sweden; August 25-29, 2003
  • General Chair: Colin Runciman; Program Chair: Olin Shivers
• 2002 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2002) (local archive)
  • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; October 4-6, 2002
  • General Chair: Mitchell Wand; Program Chair: Simon Peyton Jones
• 2001 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2001) (local archive)
  • Florence, Italy; September 3-5, 2001
  • General Chair: Benjamin Pierce; Program Chair: Xavier Leroy
• 2000 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 2000) (local archive)
  • Montreal, Canada; September 18-20, 2000
  • General Chair: Martin Odersky; Program Chair: Phil Wadler
• 1999 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 1999) (local archive)
  • Paris, France; September 27-29, 1999
  • General Chair: Didier Remy; Program Chair: Peter Lee
• 1998 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 1998) (irrecoverable)
  • Baltimore, Maryland; September 26-29, 1998
  • General Chair: Matthias Felleisen; Program Chair: Paul Hudak/Christian Queinnec
• 1997 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 1997) (local archive)
  • Amsterdam, Netherlands; June 9-11, 1997
  • General Chair: Simon Peyton Jones; Program Chair: Mads Tofte
  • Most Influential Paper (announced at ICFP'07): Functional reactive animation, Conal Elliott and Paul Hudak
• 1996 International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP 1996) (local archive)
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; May 24-26, 1996
  • General Chair: Robert Harper; Program Chair: R. Kent Dybvig
  • Most Influential Paper (announced at ICFP'07): Optimality and inefficiency: What isn't a cost model of the lambda calculus?, Julia Lawall and Harry Mairson

History

ICFP combined two former biennial conferences:

• Functional Programming and Computer Architecture (FPCA)
• Lisp and Functional Programming (LFP)

SIGPLAN Awards

SIGPLAN offers a number of awards to recognize contributions in the field of programming languages. Members of the ICFP community are encouraged to submit nominations.

• Programming Languages Achievement Award
• Distinguished Service Award
• Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award

Related Conferences and Workshops

• FLOPS: International Symposium on Functional and Logic Programming
• ICALP: International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming
• IFL: International Symposia on Implementation and Application of Functional Languages
• ISMM: International Symposium on Memory Management
• MPC: International Conference on Mathematics of Program Construction
• PLDI: Programming Language Design and Implementation
• POPL: Principles of Programming Languages
• PPDP: International Conference on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming
• TFP: Symposium on Trends in Functional Programming
• TLCA: International Conference on Typed Lambda Calculi and Applications
• TLDI: International Workshop on Types in Language Design and Implementation
• SAS: International Static Analysis Symposium
• PLI: Principles, Logics, and Implementations of High-Level Programming Languages

Related journals

• Journal of Functional Programming
• Journal of Functional and Logic Programming
• Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation
• ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems

Other relevant links

• The Functional Language FAQ.
• The ACM Calendar of Events lists important conferences and events in the computer science field.
• The SIGPLAN page has pointers to the major SIGPLAN conferences.
• The ACM page has a wealth of useful information.
• The European Association for Programming Languages and Systems provides a useful Calendar of Events, and list of Programming-related Projects.
• Resources for Programming Language Research

Please let me know of any additions or corrections.