91–100 of 161 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't understand your comment; can you make greater use of one-letter words?
z^n=x^n+y^n what can be greater than this?
Oops, I see we are devolving into Reddit. Alas, at least the end is near; recursion bottoms out at 4chan which is just one stack frame down.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
2) I like K better (fitting the ideals of APL); I feel Q was done by Arthur to please some big client as it doesn't feel like he would choose that kind of thing (that's from reading interviews, seeing the iterations and his basic code philosophy)
I like K better than Q too, but J[1] clicks with me more. J has JDB[2] and Jd[3] for things somewhat similar to qdb with Jd being the commercial offering similar to qdb rather than JDB. I would probably choose APL over Q if that were a choice. In J you can always make your definitions (verbs, nouns, etc...) plain words if you like the way Q reads. [1] jsoftware.com [2] http://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/JDB [3] http://ww…
My ideal language would be K's function syntax and k-tree data structure/namespaces, but with J's primitives and standard library.
what makes kdb so special and why isn't there an open/libre alternative?
> what makes kdb so special and why isn't there an open/libre alternative? Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it seems like you expect the answer "nothing much" to the first part of your question. I have done nothing more than read lots of articles on KDB's lineage and play around a bit with J, so take my answer with a considerable lump of salt, but my impression is that the answer to the second part of your q…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be a good step, but I don't think a preprocessor alone is enough to make this a good idea. You want good compiler error messages, static analysis tools, debuggers, code editors. You want a whole language.
They have a whole language there, didn't you notice? Namely, this Q thing that the submission is about. What we're looking at here is some of its C implementation internals. They are using short identifiers and the C preprocessor to help with terseness. The justification is that this is "like APL". But there is enough C cruft there that it's not really like APL. A possibility would be to generate whatever code those…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be a good step, but I don't think a preprocessor alone is enough to make this a good idea. You want good compiler error messages, static analysis tools, debuggers, code editors. You want a whole language.
what a gap. an abyss. inventor, and users of kdb explicitly and deliberately DO NOT WANT these things (static analysis tools, debuggers, code editors). nor they need it. language is so simple, there is no need for static analysis or code editors. (they compromised on error messages somewhat recently, though; now error messages are two words instead of one) personally, i disagree with them on debugger. would be nice t…
This is only software I have ever seen that actually got smaller over time. Not only that, it is the only software I have ever seen that used a GUI and then ditched it in a subsequent version. Few programs are so aligned with my own software sensibilities. Only complaint is that they used to have a FreeBSD port and now only have Linux and macOS but no BSD. Unfortunately Linux compat in BSD is being perceived by some…
> This is only software I have ever seen that actually got smaller over time. I agree, this is admirable! Even if it is under different names (which I think is a far better approach), Sustrik does this too: http://250bpm.com/blog:50 He went from AMPQ (not his own creation) -> ZeroMQ -> nanomsg -> Libmill (essentially Go in C/UNIX style) Also, OpenBSD comes to mind (LibreSSL for example).
In that respect it's interesting to compare libmill to Plan 9 libthread [1], which is arguably an ancestor of Go channels/goroutines.
This is only software I have ever seen that actually got smaller over time. Not only that, it is the only software I have ever seen that used a GUI and then ditched it in a subsequent version. Few programs are so aligned with my own software sensibilities. Only complaint is that they used to have a FreeBSD port and now only have Linux and macOS but no BSD. Unfortunately Linux compat in BSD is being perceived by some…
Did they remove a GUI builder for allowing the user to make charts and desktop apps or just a GUI that lets you run the shell?
With earlier versions, e.g. k2.8, there is a `show command to trigger a pop-up window that reminds me of Tcl/Tk, containing the values in editable fields.
The interpreter is terminal friendly and works without the GUI but it has no formatted output of tables in ASCII like in k4. x11 libraries are a dependency.
... and can you use the 32bit version in commercial use? (Last I checked, no...) The license already changed once (for the worse, IMnsHO), so what's to say that won't happen again. Too risky to touch. No, can't use it (32bit version) for commercial, so this is a non-starter. Sorry. kOS? really? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8475809
You can purchase a license if you want to be unaffected by future license changes. It might not be the right price for you, but it is for some. They are, in fact, courting only rich customers. Some languages are worth learning to expand your horizons. Lisp is one of them, even if you never use it, and the APL family (of which K/Q are members) is another. My C code has become faster, simpler, shorter and less buggy af…
> Some languages are worth learning to expand your horizons. Lisp is one of them, even if you never use it, and the APL family (of which K/Q are members) is another.
Exactly.
I have more than one hammer.
Notes from my KX/kdb experience: 1.) The in-memory DB .exe was around 500 KB. Imagine that. 2.) The Q language syntax, while consistent, is fairly arcane and throwback to decades past. 3.) The documentation and driver support is abysmal. 4.) It's supposedly extremely fast, but I can't help but wonder if this is a lot of successful PR and hype (like hedge fund bosses insisting on Oracle because it's the only db that '…
2) I like K better (fitting the ideals of APL); I feel Q was done by Arthur to please some big client as it doesn't feel like he would choose that kind of thing (that's from reading interviews, seeing the iterations and his basic code philosophy)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did they remove a GUI builder for allowing the user to make charts and desktop apps or just a GUI that lets you run the shell?
The former. With earlier versions, e.g. k2.8, there is a `show command to trigger a pop-up window that reminds me of Tcl/Tk, containing the values in editable fields. The interpreter is terminal friendly and works without the GUI but it has no formatted output of tables in ASCII like in k4. x11 libraries are a dependency.