PLE 2014 - Workshop on Programming Language Evolution 2014 (PLE14)

Programming languages tend to evolve in response to user needs, hardware advances, and research developments. Language evolution artefacts may include new compilers and interpreters or new language standards. Evolving programming languages is however challenging at various levels. Firstly, the impact on developers can be negative. For example, if two language versions are incompatible (e.g., Python 2 and 3) developers must choose to either co-evolve their codebase (which may be costly) or reject the new language version (which may have support implications). Secondly, evaluating a proposed language change is difficult; language designers often lack the infrastructure to assess the change. This may lead to older features remaining in future language versions to maintain backward compatibility, increasing the language's complexity (e.g., FORTRAN 77 to Fortran 90). Thirdly, new language features may interact badly with existing features, leading to unforeseen bugs and ambiguities (e.g., the addition of Java generics). This workshop brings together researchers and developers interested in programming language evolution, to share new ideas and insights, to discuss challenges and solutions, and to advance programming language design.
Topics include (but are not limited to):
Programming language and software co-evolution
Empirical studies and evidence-driven evolution
Language-version integration and interoperation
Historical retrospectives and experience reports
Tools and IDE support for source-code mining and refactoring/rejuvenation
Gradual feature introductions (e.g., optional type systems)