ICSE

The organizational effort required to make such a conference happen is extraordinary. The Conference Organizing Committee alone includes forty-one talented, active, and busy individuals who were willing to assume one more responsibility for the better part of the three years needed to plan the conference. The level of dedication and professionalism with which they discharged their duties deserves our personal acknowledgement and gratitude. More importantly, it should earn them the admiration of generations to follow in the coming years.A fortuitous early decision was that of inviting Bill Griswold and Bashar Nuseibeh to serve as Conference Program Chairs. In this capacity, which I treated as distinct from that of Research Track Chairs, they exercised an extraordinary influence on the planning of the conference. Their intellectual involvement in shaping the conference program has been invaluable and their willingness to engage constructively and critically in many of the decision processes has helped me a great deal.As always, the technical papers represent the core of the conference program. The responsibility for attracting strong submissions and selecting the best for inclusion into the program was divided among three independent teams: Research Track Chairs (Bill Griswold and Bashar Nuseibeh), Experience Track Chairs (Connie Heitmeyer and Klaus Pohl), and Education Track Chairs (Paola Inverardi and Mehdi Jazayeri). They enjoyed a great deal of independence in the manner they carried out their respective tasks, but they all shared a common set of expectations. Their drive for excellence is evident throughout these proceeding.As expected, the chairs for tracks that entailed submissions and reviews faced predictable but complex challenges, which they discharged with a great deal of skill and diligence. They were aided in this effort by still more dedicated individuals who volunteered time and labor to make up the committees that reviewed submissions and decided on various aspects of the overall program. I want to thank every member of the many conference committees for their contributions to putting together a high quality conference program.