KX Systems (KDB/k/q) overhauls its website

http://kx.com

by kiyoto • 14 years ago

26 29 14 years ago

kx.com

niggler4• 14 years ago

Spelling clearly wasn't a priority: "spohisticated"

rustc• 14 years ago

Any HNer uses K/Q/KDB for personal/commercial purposes? What do you use it for?

darrellsilver• 14 years ago

Can't say I've ever really found a personal use, but in my StatArb days it was invaluable.

Want to calculate the 180 day rolling VWAP only between noon and 2pm for every NYSE stock? Yeah, there's a function for that.

Also, it's a hilariously illegible language, and most anyone who's proficient at it is as nutty (and brilliant) as Arthur ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Whitney_(computer_scient... ), the founder of the company.

olympus• 14 years ago

Holy crap. Looking at examples from the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_(programming_language)

The following expression sorts a list of strings by their lengths:

x@>#:'x

A function to determine if a number is prime can be written as:

{&/x!/:2_!x}

This looks like brainfuck's cousin, but I'll bet Perl users feel right at home. Edit: I'm not trying to make fun of Perl or anything, it's just that I've seen some really hard to read one liners come out of it as well.

jspthrowaway2• 14 years ago

I interviewed at a New York financial services company that expected you to write Q on the whiteboard during the interview. That'd normally be fine in that market, I guess, but this was for a general operations and systems administration position.

Needless to say, I don't work there. However, that said, one of the graybeards that works there described his home MP3 collection which he wired up with a Q server, though.

niggler4• 14 years ago

For non-ultra-low-latency quantitative trading, almost all firms use KDB. At the ultra low level, KDB is too slow and cant take advantage of certain problem assumptions.

smithson55• 14 years ago

I assume, you're in the trading business. So, what do you then use for ultra low latency quantitative trading? Any insights would be nice :)

DannoHung• 14 years ago

Use it professionally for what it's intended for. After 5 years, I've come to realize that the language's limitations are too severe for building a robust analytics system. Also, the shortcomings of the database engine will eventually make you pull your hair out. Extending the language is a mean undertaking too.

Great for prototyping though.

smithson55• 14 years ago

...and your solution to production ready code is?..

tom_b2• 14 years ago

Interesting comment - I occasionally kick myself for not diving into K/Q and J, specifically because I think of them being well-suited for "robust analytics system(s)."

I am on the edge of deep-diving into statistical modeling and have been considering using J (instead of R) to both learn J deeply and build my mathematical/statistical foundations back up.

gruseom• 14 years ago

As a fan of k/q/kdb purely from a hobbyist perspective, I'd love it if you'd expand on these limitations. I get that the language isn't everybody's (ok, is virtually nobody's) cup of tea. But it would be very interesting to hear about issues that go beyond taste, especially with respect to the database engine.

Ecio782• 14 years ago

Can somebody tell which is the price range for this product?

kiyoto• 14 years ago

If my memory serves me right, somewhere in the range of 100-200k per core for licensing.

onetwothreefour• 14 years ago

Which one of the top ten investment banks don't use it? :)

mingpan• 14 years ago

I'm curious why they chose those particular syntax and operator naming conventions. Of course, syntax is superficial to some extent, but this seems a bit extreme.

fusiongyro2• 14 years ago

If you're referring to the language, it's derived from J, which is derived from APL. There's a whole philosophy underlying this terseness, which is basically but probably inadequately represented as: mathematical notation isn't designed for amateur readability, it's designed as a tool for the mind of the working mathematician, so it doesn't need to be all that approachable to the newcomer.

daeken• 14 years ago

> it's derived from J, which is derived from APL

Q is derived from K (it's a thin wrapper that uses words instead of sigils for some verbs), which is derived from APL; J is a completely separate lineage, also based on APL.

KX Systems (KDB/k/q) overhauls its website

Related Stories