Inherited limits
Torben Ægidius Mogensen · ACM Computing Surveys · 1998
We study the evolution of partial evaluators from a particular perspective: The attempt to prevent bounds in the original programs from imposing limits on residual programs.Languages often allow unbounded numbers or sizes of particular features, but each program (being nite) will only have a nite number or size of these features.If residual programs cannot overcome the bounds of the original program, that can be seen as a weakness in the partial evaluator.We show h o w historical developments in partial evaluators have removed inherited limits, and suggest further developments.