l: A new runtime for k and q • Hacker News Board

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#21

Post by vessenes » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:01 PM UTC

bikeshaving wrote: post #2

As someone who does not know what k4, qSQL, or q are, reading through the landing page of this website was giving me mild schizophrenia. And then I tried to search for these things in the old way, and received incredibly dry technical sites that still don’t tell me what it is, and all these names are wildly SEO unfriendly. So I had Claude give me context and it’s apparently the database Wall Street uses for tick data…

Algol derivatives usually written by, commercialized, then sold by Arthur Whitney. Generally considered write-only :)

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#22

Post by vessenes » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

We'd like to see some benchmarks against open and closed k interpreters please! I'm curious how well a vibe coded k/q interpreter stands up to Shakti or whatever Mr. Whitney is letting out the door right now.

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#23

Post by jloveless » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #22

We'd like to see some benchmarks against open and closed k interpreters please! I'm curious how well a vibe coded k/q interpreter stands up to Shakti or whatever Mr. Whitney is letting out the door right now.

https://github.com/l-labs/master-benchmark/tree/master/resul...

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#24

Post by jloveless » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:07 PM UTC

zX41ZdbW wrote: post #19

enduku wrote: post #16

yeah the site's clearly vibecoded and isn't opensource, but i also think this is a genuinely interesting design space and more people should be building in it. APL ( https://www.dyalog.com/ ), BQN ( https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/ ), J/Jd ( https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Jd/Overview ), Klong ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10586872 ), Kerf ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9782520 ), RayforceDB ( https:…

I've recently tested BQN on ClickBench (a benchmark for OLAP databases), and the results are not great: https://benchmark.clickhouse.com/#system=+N|liH&type=-&machi... If anyone is curious how queries in this language look, you can see it here: https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickBench/pull/939/changes#di...

https://github.com/l-labs/db-benchmark/tree/main/l

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#25

Post by Xirdus » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:08 PM UTC

These single letter names are getting out of hand.

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#26

Post by pasquinelli » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:15 PM UTC

l must be named 1 because I is taken

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#27

Post by jloveless » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

kristjansson wrote: post #15

Quite cool, but for a new runtime of an existing language it might make sense to compare to, y'know, the other[0] runtimes of that language? Even if one has to omit the best, closed ones for lack of access / permission to benchmark? [0]: https://k.miraheze.org/wiki/Running_K

https://github.com/l-labs/master-benchmark

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#28

Post by cute_boi » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:30 PM UTC

The UI screams gpt 5.5 high lol.

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#29

Post by jloveless » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:36 PM UTC

benchmarks at https://github.com/l-labs unlike klong/ngn/bqn et al (which are GREAT) this has the goal of full production database compatibility (and full language compatibility).

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#30

Post by dintech » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 8:40 PM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #3

Flagged, lots of unexplained grandiose thinking like “k and q made the vector the unit of thought.” K and q are unexplained and unlinked and “unit vector of thought” is pseudoscientific language Extremely likely to be AI, though I’m not sure that matters for rules re: submissions

> “unit vector of thought”

The language and its ideas come from Ken Iverson's famous paper "Notation as a Tool of Thought". This is a common understanding for people in the APL, K/J/Q etc array language communities, who are likely this website and product's intended audience.