| Overview | . | Topics of interest | . | Form of the Workshop | . | Important dates | . | Final programme | . | Programme committee | . | Call for papers |
Synchronous languages have been introduced in the 80s to program reactive systems. Such systems are characterised by their continuous reaction to their environment, at a speed determined by the latter. Synchronous languages have recently seen a tremendous interest from leading companies developing automatic control software for critical applications. For instance, Schneider Electric uses a Lustre-based tool, named Scade, to develop the control software for nuclear plants. Aerospatiale also uses this tool to develop the flight control of the new Airbus planes. Dassault Aviation uses Esterel Studio to program the flight control software of the Rafale fighter. Snecma uses Sildex, a Signal-based tool to develop airplane engines. ST Microelectronics, Texas Instrument, Motorola, Intel, are also interested in the Esterel technology for chip design. The key advantage pointed by these companies is that the synchronous approach has a rigorous mathematical semantics which allows the programmers to develop critical software faster and better.
Indeed, the semantics of the languages is used as a formal model upon which all the programming environments are defined. The compilation involves the construction of these formal models, and their analysis for static properties, their optimisation, the synthesis of executable sequential implementations, the automated distribution of programs. It can also build a model of the dynamical behaviours, in the form of a transition system, upon which are based the analysis of dynamical properties, e.g., through model-checking based verification, or discrete controller synthesis. Hence, synchronous programming is at the cross-roads of many approaches in compilation, formal analysis and verification techniques, and software or hardware implementations generation. The approach is related to formal methods for reactive systems like Statecharts, StateFlow, UML StateCharts.
After SLAP 2002 in Grenoble and SLAP 2003 in Porto, SLAP 2004 will be the third workshop devoted entirely to synchronous languages, applications, and programming. It will take place on March 28, 2004, in Barcelona (Spain), as a satellite event of ETAPS 2004. Its purpose is to bring together researchers and practitioners who work in the field of reactive systems.
The workshop topics cover the following issues:
The format of the workshop will feature technical presentation and also a significant time for discussion, e.g., on the basis of a challenge problem session open to different technical approaches. Judging from the previous SLAP 2002, SLAP 2003, and the annual Workshop on Synchronous Programming, the expected number of participants should range between 20 and 30.
This year, SLAP will feature an invited speaker, Vijay Saraswat.
Paper submission: November 14th 2003
Notification of acceptance: February 6th 2004
Final paper due: February 28th 2004
Day of the workshop: March 28th 2004
Please send the electronic version of your manuscript by email to Alain Girault, either in postscript or in pdf. Be sure to wait for an acknowledge, or resend your article! Try to use the LNCS format style and try to keep your manuscript below 15 pages.
The proceedings will be published electronically by Elsevier in the Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science series.
The programme committee has accepted 7 papers for publication out of 10 submissions. Here is the final programme that will take place on Sunday March 28, 2004.
The call for papers is available in postscript, pdf, or ascii form.