Separating Stages in the Continuation-Passing Style Transformation

Abstract

The continuation-passing style (CPS) transformation is powerful but complex. Our thesis is that this transformation is in fact compound, and we set out to stage it. We factor the CPS transformation into several steps, separating aspects in each step: (1) Intermediate values are named; (2) Continuations are introduced; (3) Sequencing order is decided and administrative reductions are performed.