Shepherding Guidelines

Shepherding Process

If you agree to be a shepherd we will contact you with the name of a member of the Program Committee who will support you throughout the shepherding process. They are there to answer any questions you might have about the shepherding process or selection guidelines, and you can ask for suggestions as to how to handle a particular aspect of the shepherding - whatever you feel necessary in order to be the most productive in your shepherding.

The final date for pattern submissions is 3th March 2000. Sometime around this date we will send you the address of a web-page where you can view abstracts and download copies of all the submitted papers. You need to decide which paper(s) (there should be enough shepherds that everyone need only do one or two papers each) you would like to shepherd and let Martine know of your choice. She will let you know if that paper still needs a shepherd and so whether you need to make another choice.

Once you’ve selected the paper(s) you wish to shepherd, it is up to you to contact your ‘sheep’ and to decide how to proceed with the shepherding. We will send you a sample of an introduction letter of you like.

In order to enable your assigned member of the PC to support you most effectively you need to make sure that all your emails to you sheep are copied to them and that your sheep does the same. You then have until April 25th to work with your sheep and make your recommendation for acceptance.

You can recommend to either reject the paper or accept it to the conference (see below for more detailed selection guidelines). You need to send your recommendation to your assigned PC member and a final decision will be made on acceptance. After that you may, of course, continue to work with your sheep and they have unitl June 2nd to produce a final draft of their paper.

Selection Guidelines

Like last year, in addition to the usual Writer’s Workshops we will be holding Writing Workshops. Writing Workshops are for papers that will eventually make a good pattern paper but aren’t yet ready to go through a Writer’s Workshop. Christa Schwanninger is in charge of these workshops. We’re trying to balance two forces here: to make EuroPLoP as inclusive as possible whilst keeping the quality of the patterns in the Writer’s Workshops high. A pattern that is accepted to the conference will be assigned to one of these two types of workshop.

What will make you decide to accept a paper to the conference? We think there are five major aspects of a successful well-readable pattern: form, known applicability, technical quality, and your "warm fuzzy feeling" about the pattern and the pattern’s author.

Form

An author should use a known form or it should be clear why they choose to do otherwise. If you see that the author has chosen an unknown form please ask them to make explicit why they have done so or suggest they use a known form otherwise.

In general, it should be clear what the forces are that lead to the pattern, as well as the resulting constraints on the design space. This includes both positive and negative consequences of applying the pattern. A good pattern presentation has intuitive running examples.

The writing style should be clear, unpretentious and preferably active. The paper should be readable for practising software developers, so please tell authors to avoid an overly passive and academic diction.

As a guideline, the paper should be no more than about 10 pages long in order for it to be effectively workshopped. If the paper you are shepherding is much longer than this, start the author thinking about what parts of their work they want to concentrate on for this year's EuroPLoP.

Known Applicability and Pattern Relationships

We place some emphasis on a well demonstrated applicability. Both forces, applicability and non-applicability should be clear, as well as examples of known pattern instantiations. Please check examples for redundancy. It doesn't make sense if the author presents three very similar systems all written by themselves.

In addition, please ask the author to tie his pattern into the existing literature of patterns. They should show related patterns and known variations, and how they can be combined with the pattern.

Technical Quality

The introduction of Writing Workshops will allow some flexibility in the technical quality of a paper acceptable for the conference. A paper that demonstrates applicability, is well-related to other patterns and variations, and is well-written in a known pattern form (or minor variation) is a good candidate for a Writer’s Workshop (although it can’t be too polished otherwise there would be little point in putting it through a workshop :-) as is a paper that is close to being this good but not quite there. Papers that have high technical content but are poorly presented are good candidates for the Writing Workshops. Papers that have little technical quality should not be accepted to the conference, regardless of the quality of their presentation.

When making your recommendation for acceptance you may want to indicate whether you think the paper is more suitable for a Writing or a Writer’s Workshop, although the program committee will make the final decision based on relative quality of papers, spread of subjects, etc.

Your Warm and Fuzzy Feeling

Sometimes you see a pattern that just speaks to you. You read it and you know exactly what the author is saying, even if they are addressing an area that you are only slightly interested in or have a passing experience of. If you can feel the pattern’s power it is certainly a candidate for a writer’s workshop.

Sometimes you’re shepherding a pattern that just doesn’t feel right; perhaps there are few known uses, the forces are less than clear, or the whole thing just feels unconvincing. But the author has worked hard on the initial pattern and even harder on implementing the changes you’ve suggested and you feel that they really should come to EuroPLoP even if the pattern is not ready for a writer’s workshop. The author, and the pattern, are certainly candidates for the writing workshop.