there is also a pretty big difference in what a compiler can do if we express the computation as a set of operations that transform the sets rather than a littl

there is also a pretty big difference in what a compiler can do if we express the computation as a set of operations that transform the sets rather than a little rats nest of mutations and jumps. if you wanted to vectorize the set/jmp version, you'd be trying to tease apart a problem which is undecidable in the limit. vectorizing the transformer version is trivial.