Who has the most POPL and PLDI papers?

DBLP is an online database of academic publications in computer science and related fields. Handily, it provides a Java API for accessing the data programmatically. In this blog post, I share a few fun facts I discovered while using this API to explore the data that DBLP holds about two of the main conferences on programming languages; namely, POPL and PLDI.

The code I wrote to generate the numbers is available on GitHub.

Edit [16-Dec-2019]: I’m redefining a “paper” to be any entry in the proceedings for that conference that is at least four pages long. This slightly coarse rule means that some very short but legitimate papers may not get counted. There may also be a small number of entries that are not legitimate papers, such as extended tributes or announcements, but which get counted anyway.

Edit [19-May-2019]: Updated with hyperlinks to author pages, and stats from POPL 2019.

Edit [17-Jun-2018]: Updated with stats from POPL 2018 and PLDI 2018.

Edit [27-Sep-2017]: I fixed a bug in my calculations for ‘most papers per conference’, which had led to some authors being missed.

Most papers

POPL

• 1. Benjamin C. Pierce (23 papers)
• 2. Robert Harper (21 papers)
• 3. Thomas W. Reps (18 papers)
• 4. Matthias Felleisen (16 papers)
• 5. Cédric Fournet, Derek Dreyer, John C. Mitchell, Peter Sewell, Shmuel Sagiv, Simon L. Peyton Jones, Xavier Leroy (14 papers)

PLDI

• 1. Alexander Aiken (29 papers)
• 2. Martin C. Rinard, Martin T. Vechev, Rastislav Bodík (18 papers)
• 3. Sumit Gulwani (17 papers)
• 4. Kathryn S. McKinley (16 papers)
• 5. Eran Yahav, Isil Dillig, Rajiv Gupta 0001, Shmuel Sagiv (14 papers)

Bonus: both conferences together

• 1. Alexander Aiken (42 papers)
• 2. Martin C. Rinard, Shmuel Sagiv, Sumit Gulwani (28 papers)
• 3. Martin T. Vechev (26 papers)
• 4. Robert Harper, Thomas W. Reps (25 papers)
• 5. Rastislav Bodík (24 papers)
• 6. Benjamin C. Pierce, Matthias Felleisen, Simon L. Peyton Jones (23 papers)

Most conferences

POPL

• 1. Benjamin C. Pierce (20 conferences)
• 2. Robert Harper, Thomas W. Reps (15 conferences)
• 3. Matthias Felleisen (14 conferences)
• 4. Cédric Fournet, Derek Dreyer, Martín Abadi, Mitchell Wand, Xavier Leroy (13 conferences)
• 5. Alexander Aiken, John C. Mitchell, Patrick Cousot, Philip Wadler, Shmuel Sagiv (12 conferences)
• 6. Andrew D. Gordon, David Walker, Luca Cardelli, Simon L. Peyton Jones (11 conferences)

PLDI

• 1. Alexander Aiken (21 conferences)
• 2. Martin C. Rinard (16 conferences)
• 3. Rajiv Gupta (13 conferences)
• 4. Eran Yahav, Kathryn S. McKinley, Shmuel Sagiv (12 conferences)
• 5. Cormac Flanagan, Jeffrey S. Foster, Keshav Pingali, Martin T. Vechev, Rastislav Bodík, Sorin Lerner (11 conferences)
• 6. Isil Dillig, James R. Larus, Sumit Gulwani, Suresh Jagannathan (10 conferences)

Longest vacation

That is, the longest gap between successive papers.

POPL

• 1. Dennis E. Shasha (1984 to 2018: 34-year gap)
• 2. Alan Mycroft (1986 to 2017: 31-year gap)
• 3. Uday S. Reddy (1985 to 2012: 27-year gap)
• 4. Bengt Jonsson (1989 to 2014: 25-year gap)
• 4. Guy L. Steele Jr. (1994 to 2019: 25-year gap)
• 4. Luc Maranget (1991 to 2016: 25-year gap)
• 5. Maurice Herlihy (1987 to 2010: 23-year gap)
• 5. Pierre-Louis Curien (1993 to 2016: 23-year gap)

PLDI

• 1. Barbara Liskov (1988 to 2015: 27-year gap)
• 2. Roland H. C. Yap (1992 to 2018: 26-year gap)
• 3. Joxan Jaffar (1992 to 2015: 23-year gap)
• 4. M. Frans Kaashoek (1997 to 2019: 22-year gap)
• 5. Edith Schonberg (1989 to 2010: 21-year gap)

Longest career

That is, the longest period between the first and the most recent paper.

POPL

• 1. Patrick Cousot (1977 to 2019: 42 years)
• 2. Philip Wadler (1980 to 2018: 38 years)
• 2. Thomas W. Reps (1981 to 2019: 38 years)
• 3. Radhia Cousot (1977 to 2012: 35 years)
• 4. Dennis E. Shasha (1984 to 2018: 34 years)
• 4. John C. Reynolds (1978 to 2012: 34 years)
• 5. Dexter Kozen (1984 to 2017: 33 years)
• 5. Gordon D. Plotkin (1984 to 2017: 33 years)

PLDI

• 1. Suresh Jagannathan (1987 to 2019: 32 years)
• 2. Alexander Aiken (1988 to 2019: 31 years)
• 2. Monica S. Lam (1988 to 2019: 31 years)
• 3. Thomas W. Reps (1988 to 2018: 30 years)
• 4. J. Eliot B. Moss (1987 to 2016: 29 years)
• 4. Keshav Pingali (1989 to 2018: 29 years)
• 5. Barbara Liskov (1988 to 2016: 28 years)
• 5. Guy E. Blelloch (1991 to 2019: 28 years)

Longest streak

That is, the longest streak of successive conferences with at least one paper.

POPL

• 1. Derek Dreyer (2009 to 2018: 10 conferences)
• 2. John C. Mitchell (1984 to 1992: 9 conferences)
• 3. Amir Pnueli (1980 to 1987: 8 conferences)
• 3. Benjamin C. Pierce (1991 to 1998: 8 conferences)
• 3. Nikhil Swamy (since 2012: 8 conferences)
• 4. Mitchell Wand (1982 to 1988: 7 conferences)
• 4. Pierre-Yves Strub (2012 to 2018: 7 conferences)
• 4. Vaughan R. Pratt (1977 to 1983: 7 conferences)
• 5. Aseem Rastogi (since 2014: 6 conferences)
• 5. Constantin Enea (since 2014: 6 conferences)
• 5. Joseph Y. Halpern (1980 to 1985: 6 conferences)
• 5. Ori Lahav (since 2014: 6 conferences)

PLDI

• 1. Alexander Aiken (since 2011: 9 conferences)
• 2. Sumit Gulwani (2008 to 2015: 8 conferences)
• 3. Isil Dillig (since 2014: 6 conferences)
• 3. Madan Musuvathi (2007 to 2012: 6 conferences)
• 3. Rahul Sharma (since 2014: 6 conferences)
• 3. Shmuel Sagiv (2011 to 2016: 6 conferences)
• 3. Sorin Lerner (2007 to 2012: 6 conferences)
• 3. Sriram Krishnamoorthy (2013 to 2018: 6 conferences)

Most papers per conference

POPL

• 1. Adam Chlipala (3 papers in 2015)
• 1. Deian Stefan (3 papers in 2019)
• 1. Derek C. Oppen (3 papers in 1978)
• 1. Karl Crary (3 papers in 2003)
• 1. Krishnendu Chatterjee (3 papers in 2018)
• 1. Nobuko Yoshida (3 papers in 2019)
• 1. Robert Harper (3 papers in 2003)
• 1. Simon L. Peyton Jones (3 papers in 2014)
• 1. Swarat Chaudhuri (3 papers in 2014)
• 1. Viktor Vafeiadis (3 papers in 2019)
• 1. Zachary Kincaid (3 papers in 2014)

PLDI

• 1. Martin T. Vechev (4 papers in 2018)
• 1. Sumit Gulwani (4 papers in 2011)
• 2. Rastislav Bodík (3 papers in 2005, 2007)
• 2. Andrew C. Myers (3 papers in 2015)
• 2. Armando Solar-Lezama (3 papers in 2016)
• 2. David I. August (3 papers in 2011)
• 2. Hongseok Yang (3 papers in 2014)
• 2. James R. Larus (3 papers in 1999)
• 2. Kathryn S. McKinley (3 papers in 2010)
• 2. Milind Kulkarni (3 papers in 2019)
• 2. Peter Lee (3 papers in 1998)
• 2. Rahul Sharma (3 papers in 2016)