Basic Block Versioning – Published At Last!
Over a month ago, I received reviews for the basic block versioning paper I submitted to ECOOP 2015. The reviews were again mixed, ranging from great to terrible. After 3 previous rejections at other conferences, I’d lowered my expectations and thought we were most likely in for a fourth refusal. To be honest, I was somewhat angry. The worst review we had received was unfair and harsh. Whoever had written it seemed to have a fairly poor understanding of JIT compilation, but that didn’t stop them from aggressively criticizing our work.
Fortunately for me, ECOOP offers a chance for submitters to respond to peer reviews, and I was able to channel my anger into motivation to write a very strong and detailed rebuttal. I still didn’t think our paper would make it, but at the very least, I thought, I gave it my all. I was pleasantly surprised when I learned earlier this month that the paper was accepted! Two reviewers increased the score they gave us, tipping the balance in our favor.
This is an important turning point for me, because it means the key contribution of my research work (the idea of basic block versioning) is getting published. I’m finally getting some official recognition from my academic peers for the past four years of hard work I poured into my research. Getting at least one publication from my PhD work was a personal goal I’d set for myself.
Now that this goal is reached, this paper offers me something to build upon. Publishing about additional contributions from my PhD work should be a fair bit easier now that I have my foot in the academic door. I’m already working on a new paper about typed object shapes, and I’ll be able to cite the ECOOP paper. I’ll be able to present further contributions as improvements over the work I already published, instead of trying to explain them in isolation.
And hey, I get to go give a talk in Prague! Sometimes I think being an academic isn’t all that bad.
Pointers Gone Wild 
Congratulations on the acceptance of your paper for publication, and good to hear that it has opened doors for some trips abroad, as well. Considering the outcome, your effort certainly merits the compliment: “a job well done.”
Congrats! The paper looks super interesting, and I can’t wait to read it (and other parts of the thesis).
Congratulations. As a fellow PhD candidate in Computing Science, I can relate to your experience. I’ve had a paper rejected a few times (3) before it was accepted. Karthryn McKinley, in a talk at Simon Fraser University, mentioned that one of her most cited papers was rejected 3 times before being accepted. She has videos of her talks on Youtube and most have a 10 minute segment at the end which talks about her “trials and tribulations”. I recommend it highly.
Do you have a link to that specific talk? I’d be curious to watch it.
Unfortunately, SFU does not record and/or upload the talks. Here is a link to the part I referred to from a talk at Rice University. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0IGEBNCGOQ&t=3623). You can’t make out the slides but the audio is clear.
Congratulations! My first paper about my dissertation work was also rejected three times before finally being accepted.