Niels H. Christensen, Robert Glück. Offline partial evaluation can be as accurate as online partial evaluation. ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems, 26(1):191-220, 2004. [doi]
We show that the accuracy of online partial evaluation, or polyvariant specialization based on constant propagation, can be simulated by offline partial evaluation using a maximally polyvariant binding-time analysis. We point out that, while their accuracy is the same, online partial evaluation offers better opportunities for powerful generalization strategies. Our results are presented using a flowchart language with recursive procedures.