The recent organizers of the Off the Beaten Track (OBT) workshop (Luke Church, Bob Atkey, Lindsey Kuper, Swarat Chaudhuri, Ranjit Jhala, Shriram Krishnamurthi, David Walker, and me) have decided not to hold OBT at POPL 2020.

OBT served a particular purpose: a venue for testing out new, weird ideas at a familiar setting with familiar faces. It was, as Lindsey Kuper explains, very successful! We all felt that there are now many venues for initial attempts with weird ideas; with that need met elsewhere, OBT feels less important.

OBT may not be gone forever. We’ll reconsider next year. If you have a strong opinion on the subject, please let me know!