thoughts about this macro?

[stylewarning]

Any thoughts (aside from its terrible name) about this macro which defines a monomorphization and specialization at the same time?

(cl:defmacro spec (f cl:&rest types)
  `(coalton-toplevel
     ,@(cl:loop
          :for type :in types
          :for g    := (cl:gentemp (cl:symbol-name f))
          :collect `(monomorphize)
          :collect `(declare ,g ,type)
          :collect `(define ,g ,f)
          :collect `(specialize ,f ,g ,type))))

For example:

(define (f x)
  (+ 1 (* 2 x)))

(spec f
      (Double-Float -> Double-Float)
      (Single-Float -> Single-Float))

[eliaslfox]

I would prefer to hold off on defining something like this. Application use of Coalton should really be monomorphizing once at the programs entry point. In part because the monomorphize attribute seems like a good place for other whole program optimizations, such as recompiling functions with different aritys to avoid currying or closures. See this post for more possibilities. Monomorphization also breaks function redefinition, so calling the monomorphizer multiple times in a single projects call tree could lead to unexpected results.

This does seem potentially useful for library writers, but I think we should wait until a library ecosystem develops before preemptively adding macros to support it.