I’m on a flight to POPL, and since my laptop’s battery ran out, I cannot work. (Unfortunately, there’s no outlet.) I also don’t have any internet connection. Thus, I thought it might be a good idea to write a blog post (using my smartphone) rather than watching a movie, and that is what I’m doing. Since this is an “improvisation”, I don’t really have a specific theme to write about. I’m just organizing my thoughts by writing a blog.
So, I got my first paper accepted at POPL 20261, and that is why I’m heading towards POPL. Since I started to do research on PL a bit before the time I entered the graduate school in 2016, it means that it took me 10 years to get a POPL paper. Honestly, I feel like it took too long. There are dozens of people who get their first POPL paper during their PhD. I feel extremely lucky to be still surviving in academia under such circumstances. That said, I was never really bothered by not having a POPL paper because I believe that “a paper in a top conference doesn’t necessarily imply that it’s good”.2 I also heard other researchers say this. However, I felt like I was not qualified to say this in public because I didn’t have a POPL paper. Now I feel like I’m allowed to say this, and that might be the most important thing that this paper gives me.
Is our paper good? I don’t know. That’s something the others and time will tell. And I’m not the type of guy who likes to advertise my paper on social media or a blog. Actually, I don’t really think that our paper is superb (sorry, my coauthors).3 However, there is one thing I’m proud of in this work. We managed to make it into a paper. This research project started when I was about to finish my postdoc at the University of Bologna about three years ago! I soon came back to Japan before making this project into a stable stage. Then I needed some time to adapt to the new environment (although it is an environment that I know well), and I also had a private issue that made it hard to spend my free time doing research. So it was basically me who was putting this project on hold. Ugo could have given this project to someone else, or I could have easily given it up. But somehow that did not happen. The fact that Ugo occasionally visits Japan helped, but it’s really his patience and support that helped me. If I were not working with Ugo and Andrea, I think this project would never have turned into a POPL paper. I guess they will never read this, but let me say “Thank you very much!”.
I do care about writing good papers. I also think that having a paper at a top conference could make one’s CV look good. It’s just that I never put POPL as a specific goal.↩︎
I do care about writing good papers. I also think that having a paper at a top conference could make one’s CV look good. It’s just that I never put POPL as a specific goal.↩︎