Who has the most POPL and PLDI papers?

DBLP is an online database of academic publications in computer science and related fields. Handily, all of its data is available as an XML file, which can be converted into an SQL database and queried. In this blog post, I share a few fun facts I discovered while exploring 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.

Last updated 02-Jan-2021 to include data from POPL 2020 and PLDI 2020.

Note: I define a paper to be any entry in the proceedings 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.

Most papers

POPL

• 1. Benjamin C. Pierce (24 papers)
• 2. Robert Harper 0001 (21 papers)
• 3. Derek Dreyer, Thomas W. Reps (18 papers)
• 4. Matthias Felleisen (16 papers)
• 5. Shmuel Sagiv (15 papers)

PLDI

• 1. Alexander Aiken (30 papers)
• 2. Martin T. Vechev (21 papers)
• 2. Martin C. Rinard, Rastislav Bodík (18 papers)
• 3. Sumit Gulwani (17 papers)
• 4. Kathryn S. McKinley (16 papers)
• 5. Isil Dillig (15 papers)

Bonus: both conferences together

• 1. Alexander Aiken (43 papers)
• 2. Martin C. Rinard (30 papers)
• 3. Martin T. Vechev, Shmuel Sagiv (29 papers)
• 4. Thomas W. Reps, Sumit Gulwani (28 papers)
• 5. Rastislav Bodík, Robert Harper 0001 (25 papers)

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)
• 4. Kedar S. Namjoshi (1995 to 2020: 25-year gap)
• 5. Maurice Herlihy (1987 to 2010: 23-year gap)
• 5. Pierre-Louis Curien (1993 to 2016: 23-year gap)
• 5. Mark P. Jones (1997 to 2020: 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. Gordon D. Plotkin (1984 to 2020: 36 years)
• 3. Dexter Kozen (1984 to 2020: 36 years)
• 4. Radhia Cousot (1977 to 2012: 35 years)
• 5. Dennis E. Shasha (1984 to 2018: 34 years)
• 5. John C. Reynolds (1978 to 2012: 34 years)

PLDI

• 1. Suresh Jagannathan (1987 to 2019: 32 years)
• 1. John H. Reppy (1988 to 2020: 32 years)
• 1. Thomas W. Reps (1988 to 2020: 32 years)
• 1. Alexander Aiken (1988 to 2020: 32 years)
• 2. Monica S. Lam (1988 to 2019: 31 years)
• 3. R. Kent Dybvig (1990 to 2020: 30 years)
• 4. J. Eliot B. Moss (1987 to 2016: 29 years)
• 4. Keshav Pingali (1989 to 2018: 29 years)
• 4. Guy E. Blelloch (1991 to 2020: 29 years)
• 5. Barbara Liskov (1988 to 2016: 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 (2012 to 2019: 8 conferences)

PLDI

• 1. Alexander Aiken (since 2011: 10 conferences)
• 2. Alexander Aiken (2001 to 2008: 8 conferences)
• 2. Sumit Gulwani (2008 to 2015: 8 conferences)
• 3. Isil Dillig (since 2014: 7 conferences)

Most papers per conference

POPL

• 1. Derek Dreyer (4 papers in 2020)
• 2. Adam Chlipala (3 papers in 2015)
• 2. Deian Stefan (3 papers in 2019)
• 2. Derek C. Oppen (3 papers in 1978)
• 2. Gilles Barthe (3 papers in 2020)
• 2. Justin Hsu (3 papers in 2020)
• 2. Karl Crary (3 papers in 2003)
• 2. Krishnendu Chatterjee (3 papers in 2018)
• 2. Nobuko Yoshida (3 papers in 2019)
• 2. Robert Harper 0001 (3 papers in 2003)
• 2. Simon L. Peyton Jones (3 papers in 2014)
• 2. Swarat Chaudhuri (3 papers in 2014)
• 2. Viktor Vafeiadis (3 papers in 2019)
• 2. Zachary Kincaid (3 papers in 2014)

PLDI

• 1. Martin T. Vechev (4 papers in 2018)
• 1. Sumit Gulwani (4 papers in 2011)
• 2. Martin T. Vechev (3 papers in 2012 and 2020)
• 2. Rastislav Bodík (3 papers in 2005 and 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. Loris D’Antoni (3 papers in 2020)
• 2. Milind Kulkarni 0001 (3 papers in 2019)
• 2. Peter Lee 0001 (3 papers in 1998)
• 2. Rahul Sharma (3 papers in 2016)
• 2. Thomas W. Reps (3 papers in 2020)