Fail Ecoop Try Oopsla

(PaperSubmissionPatterns)

Authors badly want to be recognized as contributing members of their community, and publication in a prestigious refereed conference is the epitome of approval. ECOOP and OOPSLA are two of the most prestigious conferences of the object paradigm: ECOOP with more of a theoretical focus, and OOPSLA with an applications focus. Some papers are fair game for either conference.

To avoid overlap, OOPSLA and ECOOP happen at different times; ECOOP usually mid-year, and OOPSLA usually in autumn. The deadlines for papers are corresponding staggered: ECOOP early in December, and OOPSLA in mid-February.

People are willing to let a paper set around a couple of months before re-submitting it, but not for a full year (in other words, if an author has their paper rejected one year, they are unlikely to improve it and re-submit it a year later).

Both conferences have stringent admission requirements, and admit a small fraction of the papers that are submitted. The chances of having your paper accepted at either conference is low.

Therefore: Authors submit their papers to ECOOP in time for the conference deadline. There is usually enough time to establish whether the paper has been accepted before the OOPSLA deadline, in which case the paper can be re-submitted to OOPSLA. As long as the paper isn't in the "submitted" status at both conferences at the same time, this practice violates no ACM or SIGPLAN rules.

One result is that ECOOP gets first shot at some of the best papers, particularly the theoretical ones. It also means that papers received at OOPSLA may have benefited from the feedback generated by the ECOOP committee.

In 1996, out of 165 papers submitted, about 37 (22%) had been submitted to (and rejected by) ECOOP. At this writing, we believe one had been accepted by ECOOP.