An experiment in partial evaluation: the generation of a compiler generator

The present paper is an extended abstract of (Jones 1985), in which a running , non-trivial partial evaluator is described . As far as we know, this partia l evaluator is the first which has been used in practice to transform interpreters into corresponding stand-alone compilers, or to generate a compile r generator by transforming itself . A partial evaluator is a program (call it mix) written in a programmin g language L, which takes as input a program p and a known value d l of p' s first input argument . It produces as output a so-called residual program :

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