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Partial computation of programs

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RIMS Symposia on Software Science and Engineering

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 147))

Abstract

This paper attempts to clarify the difference between partial and ordinary computation. Partial computation of a computer program is by definition "specializing a general program based upon its operating environment into a more efficient program". It also shows the usefulness of partial computation. Finally, the formal theory of partial computation, technical problems in making it practical, and its future research problems are discussed.

The main purpose of this paper is to make partial computation effectiveness widely known. However, two new results are also reported:

  1. (1)

    a partial computation compiler, and

  2. (2)

    a tabulation technique to terminate partial computation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd., Kokubunji, Tokyo, Japan

    Yoshihiko Futamura

Authors
  1. Yoshihiko Futamura
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Editor information

Eiichi Goto Koichi Furukawa Reiji Nakajima Ikuo Nakata Akinori Yonezawa

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© 1983 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Futamura, Y. (1983). Partial computation of programs. In: Goto, E., Furukawa, K., Nakajima, R., Nakata, I., Yonezawa, A. (eds) RIMS Symposia on Software Science and Engineering. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 147. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-11980-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-11980-9_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-11980-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-39442-6

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