The search for sound principles for object-oriented languages has given rise to much work during the past two decades, leading to a better understanding of the key concepts of object-oriented languages and to important developments in type theory, semantics, program verification, and program development.
Specific topics addressed in the workshop have included semantics, calculi, type theory, and program verification of object-oriented languages. More recently special efforts have been made to include contributions on foundational issues related to concurrent and distributed object-oriented languages, and database languages with object-oriented features.
The FOOL workshops were initiated in 1993 with the assistance of grants from the NSF and ESPRIT to bring together researchers from around the world to discuss the theoretical foundations of object-oriented languages. Attendance at the first two workshops were by invitation only. Since then the workshops have been open to the public. FOOL 4, held in Paris in affiliation with POPL '97, attracted over 100 attendees. FOOL became FOOL/WOOD in 2006, joining forces with the Workshop on Object-Oriented Developments; the name returned to FOOL in 2009.
FOOL 2014 was
co-located with OOPSLA and SPLASH
2014, in Portland, Oregon, in October 2014.
FOOL 2013 was
co-located with OOPSLA and SPLASH
2013, in Indianapolis, Indiana, in October 2013.
FOOL 2012 was
co-located with OOPSLA and SPLASH
2012, in Tucson, Arizona, in October 2012.
FOOL 2011 was
co-located with OOPSLA and SPLASH
2011, in Portland, Oregon, in October 2011.
FOOL 2010 was
co-located with OOPSLA and SPLASH
2010, in Reno/Tahoe, Nevada, on October 17, 2010.
FOOL '09 was
co-located with POPL
'09, in Savannah, Georgia on January 24, 2009.
FOOL '08 was
co-located with POPL
'08, in San Francisco, California on January 13, 2008. Despite the name change, the merger of FOOL and WOOD continued.
FOOL/WOOD '07 was
co-located with POPL
'07, in Nice, France on January 20, 2007.
FOOL/WOOD '06 was
co-located with POPL
'06, in Charleston, South Carolina on January 14, 2006. This newly
formed workshop was a merger of the FOOL and WOOD workshop series.
FOOL
12 was co-located with POPL
'05, in Long Beach, California on January 17, 2005.
FOOL 11 was co-located
with POPL '04, in Venice,
Italy on January 17, 2004.
FOOL 10 was co-located
with POPL '03, in New
Orleans, Louisiana, on January 18, 2003.
FOOL 9 was co-located
with POPL '02, in Portland,
Oregon on January 19, 2002.
FOOL 8 was co-located with
POPL '01
in London on January 20, 2001.
FOOL 7 was co-located with
POPL '00
in Boston on January 22, 2000.
FOOL 6 was co-located with
POPL '99 in San
Antonio, Texas on January 23, 1999.
FOOL 5 was held on January 17-18, 1998, in San
Diego, California, in affiliation with POPL '98.
FOOL 4 was held on January 18, 1997, in Paris,
France, in affiliation with POPL '97.
FOOL 3 was held in New Brunswick, New Jersey on
July 24 and 25, 1996.
FOOL 2 was
held in Paris in July, 1994.
FOOL 1
was held at Stanford University in October, 1993.
In the more distant past, an unrelated workshop, the Rex School / Workshop on the Foundations of Object-Oriented Languages, was held in Noordwijkerhoot, the Netherlands on May 28 - June 1, 1990. The proceedings of that workshop are available in volume LNCS 489 from Springer-Verlag (the proceedings are edited by J. W. de Bakker, W. P. de Roever, and G. Rozenberg).