I've started reading some quantum computing texts, and dabbled a bit with IBM's quantum computing experience, and this is where I get stuck: I can follow the basics at the level of "gates" or circuits -- a lot of what's out there is essentially quantum assembly language or something of that sort. But what about interfacing classical and quantum computing? Is the idea that you just run something from start to finish o…
While I don't have an easy answer for the high level interface, the assembly level interface between quantum and classical computing is also important. If you're interested in that then you should check out this paper where we describe Quil, an instruction set architecture for hybrid quantum/classical computing based on shared memory: https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03355
This instruction set is the basis for Rigetti Computing's Forest quantum programming environment: https://www.rigetti.com/forest