Program Specialization via Algorithmic Unfold/Fold Transformations.

We briefly analyze the relationship between partial evaluation and unfold/fold program transformation. These two techniques have some common objectives, but they have been developed according to different methodologies. As a promising direction to take for the future, we propose to embed partial evaluation in the richer framework of the unfold/fold program transformation technique. We also propose the use of algorithmic strategies, that is, mechanically generated sequences of transformation rules, for obtaining high quality specialized programs in a fully automatic way. We finally indicate some features of the program specialization system that may be designed according to our proposal.