LIVE 2020

Talk recordings are on our YouTube channel.

Where UX meets PL

Programming is cognitively demanding, and way too difficult. LIVE is a workshop exploring new user interfaces that improve the immediacy, usability, and learnability of programming. Whereas PL research traditionally focuses on programs, LIVE focuses more on the activity of programming.

Themes

Programmers don’t materialise programs out of thin air, but construct them out of existing programs. Embracing this insight leads to a different focus at LIVE compared to traditional PL conferences. Here are some of the qualities that we care about:

• Live. Live programming systems give the programmer immediate feedback on the output of a program as it is being edited, replacing the edit-compile-debug cycle with a fluid programming experience. Liveness can also mean providing feedback about how the static meaning of the program is changing, such as its type.

• Structured. A program is highly structured and meaningful to the programmer, even in traditionally invalid states. “Structure-aware” programming environments understand and preserve that structure, and allow operations at the level of the structure, rather than at the level of raw text.

• Tangible. In the traditional view of programs, execution takes place behind the scenes, and leaves little record of what happened. We are interested in programming systems that make execution transparent, tangible and explorable.

• Concrete. People find it easier to start with concrete examples and generalise afterwards. Programming tools tailored to people will support this mode of working.

The majority of LIVE submissions are demonstrations of novel programming systems. Technical papers, and insightful and clearly articulated experience reports, literature reviews, and position papers are also welcome.

Keynote

Liveliness, Reactivity, and Interactivity in the Future of Notebook Programming

Mary Beth Kery

Accepted Submissions

Call for Submissions

The LIVE 2020 workshop invites submissions of ideas for improving the immediacy, usability, and learnability of programming. Live programming gives the programmer immediate feedback on the behavior of a program as it is edited, replacing the edit-compile-debug cycle with a fluid programming experience. The best-known example of live programming is the spreadsheet, but there are many others.

LIVE welcomes demonstrations of novel programming systems, experience reports, literature reviews, demos of historic systems, and position papers. Topics of interest include:

• live programming environments
• visual programming
• structure-aware editors
• advances in REPLs, notebooks and playgrounds
• programming with typed holes, interactive programming
• programming by example/demonstration
• bidirectional programming
• debugging and execution visualization techniques
• language learning environments
• alternative language semantics or paradigms in support of the above
• frameworks for characterising technical or experiential properties of live programming

LIVE provides a forum where early-stage work will receive constructive criticism. Submissions may be short papers, web essays with embedded videos, or demo videos. A written 250 word abstract is required for all submissions. Videos should be up to 20 minutes long, and papers up to 6 pages long. Use concrete examples to explain your ideas. Presentations of programming systems should take care to situate the work within the history of such tools.

While LIVE welcomes early work and exploratory work, authors may optionally choose to have their work considered for inclusion in the workshop proceedings. (Details coming soon.)