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Summary: Intensional Equality ;=) for Continuations
Andrew W. Appel
Princeton University
September 8, 1995
Abstract
I propose a novel language feature, intensional continu-
ation equality, useful in languages with or without first-
class continuations, and show how it enables truly re-
markable gains in efficiency of ordinary user programs.
Continuations, expressing "what the program will
do from now on," are a much-used tool of semantics,
and sometimes show up as a user-accessible program-
ming feature. But most use of continuations is para-
metric, in the sense that functions behave the same
way independent of their continuation. I will show that
nonparametric use of continuations allows very substan-
tial, almost incredible gains in program speed. Further-
more, this technique is compatible with almost any style
of programming language; imperative, functional, even
object-oriented.
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