[racket] "compiling" evaluation of an arbitrary s-expression

Why don't you teach them how closure compilers work: 

#|
                 EXPR = x |
  			y |
			(,sinpi EXPR) |
			(,cospi EXPR) |
			(,* EXPR EXPR) |
			(,avg EXPR EXPR)
|#

;; N -> EXPR 
;; generate an expression of depth i
(define (generate-expression i)
  (local ((define select (random 6)))
    (cond
      [(= select 0) (lambda (x y) x)]
      [(= select 1) (lambda (x y) y)]
      [(= select 2) (lambda (x y) (sin ((generate-expression (sub1 i)) x y)))]
      [(= select 3) (lambda (x y) (cos ((generate-expression (sub1 i)) x y)))]
      [(= select 4) (lambda (x y) 
                      (* ((generate-expression (sub1 i)) x y) 
                         ((generate-expression (sub1 i)) x y)))]
      [(= select 5) (lambda (x y) 
                      (avg ((generate-expression (sub1 i)) x y) 
                           ((generate-expression (sub1 i)) x y)))])))

(define (avg x y)
  (/ (+ x y)
     2))
  

((generate-expression i) -1.0 +1.0)

You may have to fix the details. -- Matthias



On Jun 7, 2011, at 10:19 AM, Stephen Bloch wrote:

> I was looking at <a href="http://nifty.stanford.edu/2009/stone-random-art/">this Nifty Assignment</a>, which of course lends itself very nicely to my picturing-programs teachpack.
> 
> The random-expression generator to produce random trees over the algebra
> 	EXPR = x |
> 			y |
> 			(sinpi EXPR) |
> 			(cospi EXPR) |
> 			(* EXPR EXPR) |
> 			(avg EXPR EXPR)
> is an easy student exercise.  (Note that each of these functions maps [-1,1] to [-1,1], so composing them at random makes sense.)
> 
> If I copy-and-paste the random expressions thus generated into the body of a function definition, I (or my students) can produce cool graphics like the ones at the Nifty Assignment web page, reasonably efficiently (e.g. a 300x300 pixel image, each pixel of which requires 26 trig functions, in 1.5 seconds).  But that requires manual intervention to copy-and-paste the expressions into a definition and then re-"Run".
> 
> Or I can take the random expression as a parameter and "eval" it (or more precisely, insert it into a backquoted expression to bind "x" and "y", and "eval" that).  Much more elegant, not to mention scriptable, than doing the copy-and-paste... but it takes c. 200 times longer to run, presumably because the expression is being rebuilt and re-parsed for each pixel.
> 
> (define (eval-with-x-y x y fmla)
>  (eval `(let ((x ,x)  (y ,y)) ,fmla)
>        eval-ns))
> 
> Is there a way I can get the best of both worlds?  I'd like to take an arbitrary s-expression (containing the free variables "x" and "y" as well as a limited set of function names) and "compile" it into a function of x and y that can be called efficiently on each of tens of thousands of pixels.
> 
> Assuming the answer is "yes" (this IS Racket, after all :-)), the next challenge is to package it so it's accessible from student programs in *SL.
> 
> 
> 
> Stephen Bloch
> sbloch at adelphi.edu
> 
> 
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