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

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#41

Post by jloveless » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:07 PM UTC

dzaima wrote: post #39

zX41ZdbW wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

FYI, your "8‿64 •bit._cast -⟜@ raw" in bqn/util.bqn results in passing to •bit._cast integers in the range 0..255, whereas it expects integers ¯128..127 (and does arbitrary platform-specific things on integers outside that for the int16→int8 narrow); removing the "-⟜@" makes it work properly, and 2.5-5x faster while at it from not going to intermediate int16 (allowing the bitcast to be O(1) by itself). (•FBytes → •fi…

BQN & CBQN are absolutely wonderful pieces of code. L is mac/lin but linux is avx512 only specifically to try to deal with that problem. The compute on compressed algos helps fit more in those cache lines! https://lv1.sh/blog/compute-on-compressed/

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#42

Post by mpweiher » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #21

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 :)

Algol?

Did you mean APL?

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#43

Post by jazza68 » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

jloveless wrote: post #27

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

that is fast! Are you going to do the STAC-M3 benchmarks? Kx use them as evidence that they are the fastest, which is a fair claim as nobody else participates in that particular test :-)

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#44

Post by jloveless » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

jazza68 wrote: post #43

jloveless wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

that is fast! Are you going to do the STAC-M3 benchmarks? Kx use them as evidence that they are the fastest, which is a fair claim as nobody else participates in that particular test :-)

I think one day we'll do that on https://oxide.computer/ 1: because we love our friends 2: the gear is great (and ROCEv2 supported which L uses)

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#45

Post by quotemstr » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:18 PM UTC

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:…

... DuckDB.

Columnar databases are array languages, after all.

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#46

Post by Onavo » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

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 hope OP can survive the lawsuits though, the K authors are infamously litigious.

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#47

Post by lioeters » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:23 PM UTC

Closed source (and vibe-coded) software, especially for a language runtime, is a non-starter for many people including myself. But proprietary license is actually common in the APL and K family of languages. They are fascinating though, and plenty of free/open implemenations exist, for example: https://ktye.github.io/

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#48

Post by jazza68 » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:28 PM UTC

lioeters wrote: post #47

Closed source (and vibe-coded) software, especially for a language runtime, is a non-starter for many people including myself. But proprietary license is actually common in the APL and K family of languages. They are fascinating though, and plenty of free/open implemenations exist, for example: https://ktye.github.io/

the author of the site makes no secret that the website is vibecoded. You're unfairly extrapolating that the product itself is vibe-coded (hard to do unless he is a time-traveller). And you're missing the point of the unique advantages that L offers wrt computation on compressed data.

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#49

Post by jloveless » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:32 PM UTC

jazza68 wrote: post #48

lioeters wrote: post #47

Closed source (and vibe-coded) software, especially for a language runtime, is a non-starter for many people including myself. But proprietary license is actually common in the APL and K family of languages. They are fascinating though, and plenty of free/open implemenations exist, for example: https://ktye.github.io/

the author of the site makes no secret that the website is vibecoded. You're unfairly extrapolating that the product itself is vibe-coded (hard to do unless he is a time-traveller). And you're missing the point of the unique advantages that L offers wrt computation on compressed data.

yup website is Claude Design for prototype. For the core ... AI has been less helpful than I hoped - I believe largely because array style languages have so little source in training? But where Claude was especially helpful (other than the web design w/ Claude Design for the prototype) was analyzing ASM output of functions and optimizing those (although it was hard to go ASM>C or ASM>rust). E.g. lots of small mistakes would have been missed by not having restrict/const in places. Claude was great at compile all functions, analyze ASM, suggest optimized ASM (and ASM2vec was helpful as well for finding any "similar" code paths that could be combined (e.g. var/dev/cov are just moments)

Re: l: A new runtime for k and q

#50

Post by lioeters » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 9:34 PM UTC

jazza68 wrote: post #48

lioeters wrote: post #47

Closed source (and vibe-coded) software, especially for a language runtime, is a non-starter for many people including myself. But proprietary license is actually common in the APL and K family of languages. They are fascinating though, and plenty of free/open implemenations exist, for example: https://ktye.github.io/

the author of the site makes no secret that the website is vibecoded. You're unfairly extrapolating that the product itself is vibe-coded (hard to do unless he is a time-traveller). And you're missing the point of the unique advantages that L offers wrt computation on compressed data.

Fair enough. Without seeing the code itself, one can only judge the book by its cover. I'm interested, but maybe not quite the target audience.