TOOLS USA 1998

TOOLS Conferences Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems
26th International Conference and Exhibition
Santa Barbara, California, August 3-7, 1998

Design Competition Chair: Ian Joyner, Microsoft Research Institute, Macquarie University, Australia

TOOLS USA '98 (Santa Barbara, California, 3-7 August 1998) will be holding for the first time, a design competition intended to enable skilled O-O designers to submit their best ideas to public scrutiny, and let the best one win.

HERE IS HOW IT WORKS
NOW: the theme of the competition is announced (see below)

NOW and until June 30: advise TOOLS of your intention to participate (this helps planning).

By June 30: submit your entry to the competition, electronically.

July 15: the competition panel notifies preselected competition authors.

August 4: in a plenary session at TOOLS, authors of preselected contributions present and demonstrate their work to the TOOLS attendees and judges.

August 5: at the TOOLS concert dinner, the winners are announced.

RULES
All submissions must address the general topic described below.

All submissions must include both the source code and a working executable. The executable must run on one or more of Windows 95, Windows NT, Linux, on an Intel-based platform with 32 MBytes of memory (which will be available for the demonstrations during the plenary TOOLS session). Other platforms are acceptable if you can bring your own machine to project from.

Submissions should include all elements that will help the judges to make their choice (based on the criteria listed below) and the audience to appreciate the contributions. Such elements may include (non-restrictive list): analysis and design documents; system diagrams; end-user documentation; internal documentation. All documentation should be in one of the following formats: Plain ASCII; Microsoft Word; Adobe Acrobat; Adobe FrameMaker; HTML.

Submissions should include a document entitled GENERAL DESCRIPTION and presenting the general characteristics of the submission, such as: functionality offered, basic usage, representative screenshots, major architectural decisions, technology choices (such as programming language etc.). This document should be no longer than 10 pages.

Submissions should also include a one-page abstract in HTML format describing the essentials. This page will be posted on the TOOLS DESIGN COMPETITION Web page.

Authors of contributions authorize TOOLS to publish the full extent of these contributions and to make them available in any suitable way.

There is NO requirement on the choice of analysis/design/implementation language, development environment, CASE tools, documentation tools etc. These choices should be stated as part of the "general description".

Submissions may be entirely new developments, existing developments, or extensions to existing developments. In all cases the submitters should have the rights to submit the software without infringing on any other party's rights.

Authors of preselected contributions must be registered TOOLS participants to present their solution to the plenary session.

EVALUATION CRITERIA
Reusability: breadth of coverage, applicability to diverse needs.

Correctness and robustness. Extendibility, ease of change. Readability of the source code. Quality of the user documentation. Quality of the internal documentation.

THE THEME
Because the theme of TOOLS USA 98 is "THE MOVE TO COMPONENTWARE", the Design Competition's theme is reusable components. All submissions should offer reusable components in the following area: TIME AND DATE

This theme has been chosen because of its relevance to the software industry and application developers, not only because of the Year 2000 crisis but also because a good time and date library is essential to many application domains.

PRIZES
1st prize: invitation to attend TOOLS USA '99, all expenses paid; publication of the general description in the next TOOLS proceedings (published by IEEE Computer Press); plus a bundle of software products.

2nd and 3rd prize: publication of the general description in the next TOOLS proceedings; a bundle of software products.

SPONSORS
If your company is interested in sponsoring the competition, e.g. by providing supplementary prizes, please contact TOOLS at the address below.

JUDGES
The international panel of judges, made of O-O experts with special interest in reusable software, is chaired by Ian Joyner of the Microsoft Research Institute (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia).

CORRESPONDENCE
Please send all correspondences, starting with the notification of intention to submit, to:
design-competition@tools-conferences.com