Gotta say, I'm amused that the "shorter way" is 3 lines longer than the code it replaces. :-)

Can you add this as a third option (next to poly and poly_reduce)? Having them next to each other makes it easier to compare.

@benlaurie, I'm presuming it's clear, but just in case not: the shorter way includes some set-up infrastructure code that wouldn't be duplicated per primitive. ;-)

@franziskuskiefer, could it be nicer to use Git branches instead of dumping alternatives in single files? I like to take advantage of version-control metadata instead of duplicating part of its functionality within single revisions.