• Olivier Danvy: Reynolds, Definitional interpreters for higher-order programming languages.
• Matthias Felleisen: Plotkin, Call-by-name, call-by-value, and the lambda-calculus.
• Jean-Jacques Lévy: Church, The calculi of lambda conversion. (“I read it in a bar in avenue de Wagram waiting for my girlfriend!”)
• Harry Mairson: Kanellakis and Mitchell, Polymorphic unification and ML typing.
• Olin Shivers: Steele, RABBIT: A compiler for Scheme (MS thesis).

Matthias wrote a solicited article for SIGPLAN in 2003, giving his own personal history with the Plotkin paper. I haven’t been able find the slighest mention of that article on the web, but Matthias was nice enough to let me reproduce the article in its entirety here: plotkin.txt. I wish this sort of thing was more common in our field.

Jean-Jacques originally told me three papers, including the one above, along with:

• Scott, Data Types as Lattices.
• Wadsworth, Semantics and Pragmatics of the Lambda-Calculus (PhD thesis).

He chose the Church monograph because “many of the problems were correctly stated, even if it was λI-calculus.” (When asked if I could share his response, he said, “do whatever you want, but don’t think my answers are so important.”)

It’s quite an interesting list, and in my mind, gives a great deal of insight into the work of each of the researchers.

I would also like to construct a list consisting of young researchers’—those who I think will define our field over the coming years—most influential paper.

• [1972,inproceedings] bibtex
  J. C. Reynolds, "Definitional interpreters for higher-order programming languages," in ACM ‘72: Proceedings of the ACM annual conference, New York, NY, USA, 1972, pp. 717-740.
  @INPROCEEDINGS{reynolds_def_interpreters,
  author = {John C. Reynolds},
  title = {Definitional interpreters for higher-order programming languages},
  booktitle = {ACM '72: Proceedings of the ACM annual conference},
  year = {1972},
  pages = {717--740},
  location = {Boston, Massachusetts, United States},
  doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/800194.805852},
  publisher = {ACM Press},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  note = {Reprinted in {\em Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation},
  11(4):363-397, 1998},
  url = {http://www.brics.dk/~hosc/local/HOSC-11-4-pp363-397.pdf}
}

• [1975,article] bibtex
  G. D. Plotkin, "Call-by-Name, Call-by-Value and the lambda-Calculus," Theor. Comput. Sci., vol. 1, iss. 2, pp. 125-159, 1975.
  @ARTICLE{plotkin_cbn_cbv,
  author = {Gordon D. Plotkin},
  title = {Call-by-Name, Call-by-Value and the lambda-Calculus},
  journal = {Theor. Comput. Sci.},
  volume = {1},
  number = {2},
  year = {1975},
  pages = {125-159},
  url = {http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/gdp/publications/cbn_cbv_lambda.pdf}
}

• [1985,book] bibtex
  A. Church, The Calculi of Lambda Conversion. (AM-6) (Annals of Mathematics Studies), Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press, 1985.
  @BOOK{church_lambda,
  author = {Alonzo Church},
  title = {The Calculi of Lambda Conversion. (AM-6) (Annals of Mathematics Studies)},
  year = {1985},
  isbn = {0691083940},
  publisher = {Princeton University Press},
  address = {Princeton, NJ, USA}
}

• [1989,inproceedings] bibtex
  P. C. Kanellakis and J. C. Mitchell, "Polymorphic unification and ML typing," in POPL ‘89: Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages, New York, NY, USA, 1989, pp. 105-115.
  @INPROCEEDINGS{kanellakis_mitchell_ml,
  author = {P. C. Kanellakis and J. C. Mitchell},
  title = {Polymorphic unification and ML typing},
  booktitle = {POPL '89: Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages},
  year = {1989},
  isbn = {0-89791-294-2},
  pages = {105--115},
  location = {Austin, Texas, United States},
  doi = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/75277.75286},
  publisher = {ACM},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  }

• [1978,techreport] bibtex
  J. Guy L. Steele, "Rabbit: A Compiler for Scheme," , Cambridge, MA, USA1978.
  @TECHREPORT{steele_rabbit,
  author = {Guy L. Steele, Jr.},
  title = {Rabbit: A Compiler for Scheme},
  year = {1978},
  source = {http://www.ncstrl.org:8900/ncstrl/servlet/search?formname=detail\&id=oai%3Ancstrlh%3Amitai%3AMIT-AILab%2F%2FAITR-474},
  publisher = {Massachusetts Institute of Technology},
  address = {Cambridge, MA, USA},
  }

• [1976,article] bibtex
  D. S. Scott, "Data Types as Lattices," SIAM J. Comput., vol. 5, iss. 3, pp. 522-587, 1976.
  @ARTICLE{scott_datatypes,
  author = {Dana S. Scott},
  title = {Data Types as Lattices},
  journal = {SIAM J. Comput.},
  volume = {5},
  number = {3},
  year = {1976},
  pages = {522-587},
  bibsource = {DBLP, http://dblp.uni-trier.de}
}

• [1971,phdthesis] bibtex
  C. P. Wadsworth, "Semantics and Pragmatics of the Lambda-Calculus," PhD Thesis , 1971.
  @PHDTHESIS{wadsworth_phd,
  author = "Christopher P. Wadsworth", title = "Semantics and Pragmatics of the Lambda-Calculus", school = "Oxford University", year = "1971" }