Events and news relevant to the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science

[Anton Lorenzen <anton.lorenzen@ed.ac.uk>]

The ML workshop, held on 16 October at ICFP 2025 in Singapore,

has just extended its deadline to 3 July AoE.

# Call for Presentations

## Format

ML (originally, “Meta Language”) is a family of programming languages

that includes dialects known as Standard ML, OCaml, and F#, among

others. The development of these languages has inspired a large amount

of computer science research, both practical and theoretical.

The ML 2025 workshop will continue the informal approach followed

since 2010. Presentations are selected by the program committee from

submitted proposals. There are no published proceedings, so

contributions may be submitted for publication elsewhere. The main

criterion is promoting and informing the development of the entire

extended ML family and delivering a lively workshop atmosphere. We

particularly encourage talks about works in progress, presentations of

negative results (things that were expected to but did not quite work

out) and informed positions.

Each presentation should take 20-25 minutes. The exact time will be

decided based on scheduling constraints.

We plan the workshop to an be in-person event with remote

participation (streamed live). We hope that speakers are able to

present in person. If a speaker is unable to attend, they may

instead present remotely.

The 2025 ML family workshop is co-located with ICFP/SPLASH 2025

and will take place on **October 16, 2025** in Singapore.

## Scope

We seek presentations on topics including (but not limited to):

* Language design: abstraction, higher forms of polymorphism,

  concurrency and parallelism, distribution and mobility, staging,

  extensions for semi-structured data, generic programming,

  object systems, etc.

* Implementation: compilers, interpreters, type checkers, partial

  evaluators, runtime systems, garbage collectors, foreign function

  interfaces, etc.

* Type systems: inference, effects, modules, contracts, specifications

  and assertions, dynamic typing, error reporting, etc.

* Applications: case studies, experience reports, pearls, etc.

* Environments: libraries, tools, editors, debuggers, cross-language

  interoperability, functional data structures, etc.

* Semantics of ML-family languages: operational and denotational

  semantics, program equivalence, parametricity, mechanization, etc.

We specifically encourage reporting what did not meet expectations or

what, despite all efforts, did not work to satisfaction.

Four kinds of submissions are solicited: Research Presentations,

Experience Reports, Demos, and Informed Positions.

* Research Presentations: Research presentations should describe new

  ideas, experimental results, or significant advances in ML-related

  projects. We especially encourage presentations that describe work

  in progress, that outline a future research agenda, or that

  encourage lively discussion. These presentations should be

  structured in a way which can be, at least in part, of interest to

  (advanced) users.

* Experience Reports: Users are invited to submit Experience Reports

  about their use of ML and related languages. These presentations do

  not need to contain original research but they should tell an

  interesting story to researchers or other advanced users, such as an

  innovative or unexpected use of advanced features or a description

  of the challenges they are facing or attempting to solve.

* Demos: Live demonstrations or short tutorials should show new

  developments, interesting prototypes, or work in progress, in the

  form of tools, libraries, or applications built on or related to ML

  and related languages. (You will need to provide all the hardware

  and software required for your demo; the workshop organizers are

  only able to provide a projector.)

* Informed Positions: A justified argument for or against a language

  feature. The argument must be substantiated, either theoretically

  (e.g., by a demonstration of (un)soundness, an inference algorithm,

  a complexity analysis), empirically or by substantial experience.

  Personal experience is accepted as justification so long as it is

  extensive and illustrated with concrete examples.

## Submission details

Submissions must be in the PDF format and have a short summary

(abstract) at the beginning. Submissions in the categories of

Experience Reports, Demos, or Informed Positions should indicate so in

the title or subtitle. The point of the submission should be clear

from its two first pages (PC members are not obligated to read any

further.)

Submissions must be uploaded to the workshop submission website before

the submission deadline.

Only the short summary/abstract of accepted submissions will be

published on the conference website. After acceptance, authors will

have the opportunity to attach or link to that summary any relevant

material (such as the updated submission, slides, etc.)

*Submission website*: https://ml2025.hotcrp.com/

*Workshop website*: https://conf.researchr.org/home/icfp-splash-2025/mlsymposium-2025

## Coordination with the OCaml Users and Developers Workshop

The OCaml workshop is seen as more practical and is dedicated in

significant part to OCaml community building and the development of

the OCaml system. In contrast, the ML family workshop is not focused

on any language in particular, is more research-oriented, and deals

with general issues of ML-style programming and type systems. There

is some overlap, which we are keen to explore in various ways. The

authors who feel their submission fits both workshops are encouraged

to mention it at submission time or contact the program chairs.