I remember with great fondness the first ACL Conference I attended 20 years ago in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Some things have changed: papers presented there that I considered interesting or inconsequential have switched positions in my personal ranking as I learned more and more about our field; single sessions have long been replaced by parallel sessions to accommodate an ever increasing number of research contributions; the number of associated workshops and posters has mushroomed beyond anyone's dream. Almost without noticing, we transitioned from small conferences of a few hundred to conferences that bring together 1000 plus participants from all over the world. Our field has matured significantly attracting the attention of not only a handful of academics, but successful industries and Research Labs as well. Some things have stayed the same though: ACL continues to be the pre-eminent conference in our field and the best place to meet and make like-minded friends, discuss tantalizing tricks that you can learn about only in face-to-face communication settings, and celebrate the results we get.
展开▼
