Partial evaluation

Partial evaluation is like when you have a cake and you take out the flour, sugar, butter, and eggs to make the batter. The batter is a part of the cake, but it's not the whole cake yet.

So, partial evaluation is when you take a big problem and break it down into smaller parts, so you can focus on one part at a time. It's like breaking down the cake recipe into the different ingredients you need.

For example, let's say you have a math problem that says "3x + 2 = 8." If you want to find out what x is, you could use partial evaluation.

First, you could focus on the "3x" part of the problem. You could ask yourself, "What number times 3 equals 6?" The answer is 2, so you can replace "3x" with "2x + 2".

Now your problem looks like "2x + 2 + 2 = 8." You can simplify this to "2x + 4 = 8."

Then, you could focus on the "2x" part of the problem. You could ask yourself, "What number times 2 equals 4?" The answer is 2, so you can replace "2x" with "2(2)".

Now your problem looks like "2(2) + 4 = 8." You can simplify this to "8 = 8."

Finally, you know that x equals 2, because you solved the problem by breaking it down into smaller parts.

So, partial evaluation is a way to simplify big problems and solve them by focusing on each small part one at a time.