General Chair's Message 

Welcome to OOPSLA 2006, the premier gathering of professionals from industry and academia, including practitioners, researchers, students, and educators—all sharing their experiences with object technology and its offshoots for the 20th year. OOPSLA offers an extraordinary array of venues and activities: presentations from invited speakers, research papers, essays, practitioner reports, expert panels, demonstrations, formal and informal educational symposia, workshops, and diverse tutorials from world-class lecturers. The popular Onward! track presents out-of-the-box thinking at the frontiers of computing. Posters discuss late-breaking results, culminating in the Fifth Annual SIGPLAN Student Research Competition. Lightning Talks allow anyone to speak to the community about anything on their minds. Like-minded people can gather informally and spontaneously at Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. And of course there are plenty of social opportunities for mingling and professional networking. That’s just a sampling of what makes OOPSLA the conference of choice for software technologists, from recognized academics to undergraduate students, from industrial researchers to developers and managers, from the creators of technology to its users.

This year was a difficult one for the OOPSLA community, as we had to say goodbye to our cherished friend, mentor, inspiration, and colleague, John Vlissides (of the Gang of Four).  If you had the privilege of knowing John--or even if you didn't--you won't want to miss our tribute to him.

I hope to see you in Portland. Be sure to come over and say hello!

Peri Tarr, General Chair