Better Defunctionalization through Lambda Set Specialization

Explore a groundbreaking approach to defunctionalization in this 23-minute conference talk from PLDI 2023. Delve into Lambda Set Specialization (LSS), a novel technique that eliminates higher-order functions without restricting their usage. Learn how LSS leverages a polymorphic type system to track function value flow and reframe specialization as type monomorphization. Discover the benefits of LSS through performance evaluations on MLton, OCaml, and Morphic compilers, showcasing significant runtime speedups. Gain insights into the formalization and mechanized proof of LSS's type inference algorithm using Isabelle/HOL. Ideal for those interested in program analysis, compiler optimization, and functional programming language implementation.