Calculating a factorial with parallel sub-computations using pmap, pvalues and pcalls

Question

In an attempt to learn more about Clojure's parallel computation functions, I devised the following task: calculate a factorial in parallel using pmap, pcalls and pvalues.

The idea is to split the factorial sequence into sub-computations, reducing the final output of each.

Here is the obvious non-parallel function:

(defn factorial [n] (reduce * (range 1 (inc n))

pmap is fairly straight-forward:

(defn pmap-factorial [n psz]
 (let [parts (partition-all psz (range 1 (inc n)))]
 (reduce * (pmap #(apply * %) parts))))

However, with pvalues I had to resort to macros that return a computation function.

(defmacro pvalues-factorial [n psz]
 (let [exprs (for [p (partition-all psz (range 1 (inc n)))]
 (cons '* p))]
 `(fn [] (reduce * (pvalues ~@exprs)))))

Similar approach with pcalls:

(defmacro pcalls-factorial [n psz]
 (let [exprs (for [p (partition-all psz (range 1 (inc n)))]
 `(fn [] (* ~@p)))]
 `(fn [] (reduce * (pcalls ~@exprs)))))

So, I had to use macros for pcalls and pvalues. Does not seem ideal, but it was the only way I could accomplish the above (and perhaps indicates that pmaps is the best practice for this use case).

Questions:

1) How could the code be made more correct / idiomatic?

2) Did I have to resort to macros for pvalues and pcalls, or have I overlooked another way of accomplishing my goal with these functions?

Answer 1

1) that is quite idomatic Clojure from what I have seen.

2) macros are "contagious" if the thing you are trying to call is a macro and you want to do anything requiring first-class-functions (map apply reduce etc...) then the thing doing the applying must it's self be a macro.

This is why the coding standards for clojure.contrib stable releases require that your library provide a non-macro way to access it's services in addition to the macro one. as your problem nicely demonstrates. macros are incredibly useful, and they are not first class