Hot Crap!

HotCRP, a web-based conference submission and review package designed for flexibility and ease of use during reviewing, was initially written in summer 2006 as the submission system for HotNets V, which I co-chaired with Greg Minshall. It currently consists of about 20,000 lines of PHP plus 500 lines of Javascript, 1200 lines of CSS, and some others, and has been used for two SIGCOMMs, two USENIX Annual Technical Conferences, NSDI, ISCA, SOSP, and others. This paper discusses its design principles (and how they differ from other systems), my experiences with ongoing development and with anonymity, some interesting bugs, and general thoughts on conference review. Heartfelt thanks to the generous Dirk Grunwald, author of HotCRP’s ancestor CRP. Without CRP, HotCRP would not exist (although since essentially all CRP code has been replaced, any bugs are mine).