At POPL the related-work section is part of the proof of novelty: reviewers are specialists who know the three closest systems, and the section must say — precisely — what your formalism can do that each of them cannot, or what assumption of theirs you discharge. Venue-form facts below were checked 2026-07-08.
Weak: "Much work has studied gradual typing [1-9]." Strong: each nearest neighbor gets a sentence with a technical object in it —
If you cannot write the delta sentence, you have not finished reading the neighbor
paper — or the delta does not exist, which is a popl-topic-selection conversation.
| Where the closest work lives | Typical relationship to your POPL paper |
|---|---|
| POPL / PACMPL Issue POPL | The direct predecessors; deltas must be theorem-level |
| ICFP, OOPSLA, PLDI (same PACMPL journal) | Same idea family, different evidence culture — compare formal content, not venue prestige |
| LICS, CSL, FSCD | The logic-side siblings; cite them for the semantic foundations you build on |
| CAV, TACAS, CPP, ITP | Verification tools and mechanization techniques; CPP is co-located with POPL itself |
| TOPLAS, JFP, LMCS | Journal-length versions of conference lines — cite the mature statement when one exists |
| ESOP, APLAS | The European/Asian PL circuit; recent near-neighbors often debut here |
Coverage duty is highest for the last two POPL/PACMPL cycles: a 2026 paper on your exact judgment form, missed, reads as either carelessness or concealment under full double-blind.
Since POPL joined PACMPL, "a POPL 2018 paper" is bibliographically a journal article. Get the form right before reviewers do:
@article{RustBelt2018,
author = {Jung, Ralf and Jourdan, Jacques-Henri and
Krebbers, Robbert and Dreyer, Derek},
title = {RustBelt: Securing the Foundations of the Rust Programming Language},
journal = {Proc. ACM Program. Lang.},
volume = {2},
number = {POPL},
pages = {66:1--66:34},
year = {2018}
}
Volume anchors verified on the ACM DL: Vol 2 = POPL 2018, Vol 7 = POPL 2023, Vol 10 = POPL 2026.
PL folklore misfiles its classics. Check dblp before writing "at POPL": separation
logic's canonical paper (Reynolds 2002) is LICS, not POPL; Milner's type
polymorphism paper is JCSS 1978; "Theorems for Free!" is FPCA 1989. Genuine
POPL landmarks that are safe to cite as POPL — each dblp/ACM-DL verified
2026-07-08 — include Cousot & Cousot 1977 (abstract interpretation), Damas & Milner
1982, Necula 1997 (proof-carrying code), Leroy 2006 (certified compilation), and
Jung et al. 2015 (Iris). See resources/exemplars/library.md.
[Nearest neighbors] <3-5 systems with one-line technical deltas>
[Coverage gaps] <last-two-cycle POPL/PACMPL items not yet cited>
[Attribution audit] <claims of venue/priority verified on dblp? failures listed>
[Citation form] <PACMPL journal-form errors found>