Choo choo

What follows is the beginning of a train of thoughts for solving the last part of Exercise 2 in the lecture note On interpretive overheads. Can you continue it with a few more conceptual wagons?

• To interpret something, an interpreter does a bunch of things.
• To interpret each of these things, the underlying interpreter does a bunch of other things.
• To interpret each of these other things, the interpreter that underlies this underlying interpreter does another bunch of other things.

Say that, on average, each time an interpreter interprets something, it needs to do X things. How many things, on average, does the underlying interpreter need to do when an interpreter interprets something? And what about the interpreter that underlies this underlying interpreter?

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Created [21 Jan 2019]