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> How do you figure? Programmers too, have a "native language" Unless everybody is born learning a language, no we don't. Even 'The one they use the most' vari

• geocar 7y ago
  > Unless everybody is born learning a language, no we don't. Even 'The one they use the most' varies over time. Nobody is born having learned a language. It's something even babies have to learn and they know nothing! People can even "switch" their native spoken language up to a point although it seems to get much harder as they get older and more experienced with one language, as they're constantly comparing their aptitude to their "native" one -- just as they do with programming. > An easy use case: you're in your company and you need to do a simple script for some computation. The more readable the language you use is, the more coworkers will be able to find a bug/reuse it/modify it without requiring your help. The decision to bring another language into a company requires different considerations for every company. The one I work for has a lot of q/k programmers, so this isn't a problem for me. I like programming in k, so it makes sense I might want to be around other k programmers. I think if you decided to write your "simple script" in even a well-known language like JavaScript, you'd cause some grumbles in a Python+C# shop; k isn't special in this regard. > I read more of the parent comments on that link. I didn't notice that the OP started with an unsorted dataset, you did binary search on a sorted one. HIBP offers the data pre-sorted, so I used that. I could have used asc (actually sort) instead of `s# (an assertion that it is already sorted) if I'd used a different file, but I value my time. > I thought that it the "kdb native format" meant more database magic that just serialization. No. It's literally just mmap. There's a header on the file describing the array shape, and indicating that it is sorted (so bin will be accelerated), but that's it. kdb is a database in exactly the same way that Python could be if you just pickle/unpickle everything, except it's actually fast enough that people do this, even for large data sets. > "harmonises" in the sense that it takes one of the most common programming symbols and changes it? I don't know of anyone that sees "2 & 3 = 2" and thinks "yeah this makes sense". If you write something like (f=42)&(g=69) you expect "&" to mean "and" here, right? Well if f is an atom, then f=42 returns either a 0b or a 1b based on whether f is 42. What if f is a vector? Well, let's see: f:1 42 2 g:4 69 4 f=42 returns 010b and g=69 returns 010b -- do you see why? Now 010b & 010b should return 010b for the same reason that 1b & 1b should return 1b (and 1b&0b should return 0b). "&" is just generalised from here to work the same way non-binary values. Having it convert to binary-and would be very confusing for vectors, and although I can see a consistent way it could work, I don't see the value in that operation.
  • gjulianm 7y ago
    > Nobody is born having learned a language. It's something even babies have to learn and they know nothing! I meant a programming language (it gets confusing, sorry). But anyways, our native language is much more embedded in the brain than programming languages. > I think if you decided to write your "simple script" in even a well-known language like JavaScript, you'd cause some grumbles in a Python+C# shop; k isn't special in this regard. Yes. And I'd cause even more grumbles if it was written in Haskell, and even more if it was on K. That's the point. > HIBP offers the data pre-sorted, so I used that. Yes, and that changes how you access the data. So the evaluation was not fair, as the OP was not using sorted data. > db is a database in exactly the same way that Python could be if you just pickle/unpickle everything, except it's actually fast enough that people do this, even for large data sets. That's nice, I'd actually wish Python had better serialization facilities. > f=42 returns 010b and g=69 returns 010b -- do you see why What if "f:42 1 2"? f=42 returns 100b (is that a value or a vector?) so under the common "and" definition "(f=42)&(g=69)" should return 000b, under the "less than" returns 010b?
    • geocar 7y ago
      > our native language is much more embedded in the brain than programming languages. I think it's possible that might have more to do with the fact we use "our native language" more. > Yes. And I'd cause even more grumbles if it was written in Haskell, and even more if it was on K. That's the point. I don't know. I work in a place with a lot of q/k programmers, so this isn't a problem I face. > Yes, and that changes how you access the data. So the evaluation was not fair, as the OP was not using sorted data. You're mistaken. They did use sorted data, they just didn't know about the presorted file so they also wrote code to sort it. > is 100b a value or a vector? It's a vector of three elements (bits: zeros or ones). > What if "f:42 1 2"? f=42 returns 100b … so under the common "and" definition "(f=42)&(g=69)" should return 000b Yes that's right, and q/k would return 000b in that case. > under the "less than" returns 010b? 100b<010b is 010b. We need something that gives us 000b and that operation is "and". Say I have a table that looks like this: f g k -------- 10 9 kf 20 8 je 42 69 kf 42 0 lk That's written like this: t:+`f`g`k!(10 20 42 42;9 8 69 0;`kf`je`kf`lk); k has tables as a data type. You can think of them as a list of dictionaries if you want: q)a:`f`g`k!(10;9;`kf); q)b:`f`g`k!(20;8;`je); q)c:`f`g`k!(42;69;`kf); q)d:`f`g`k!(42;0;`lf); q)(a;b;c;d) f g k -------- 10 9 kf 20 8 je 42 69 kf 42 0 lf but I only do this to reinforce the idea this is a basic data type in k. I can write t.f=42 and get 0011b and t.g=69 and get 0010b. I can do queries like this: q)select from t where (f=42)&(g=69) and that's basically the same as this: t@&:(t.f=42)&(t.g=69) +`f`g`k!(,42;,69;,`en) (&: is "where" and not to be confused with &) And from there it should be clear why we need this "and" behaviour. The question is what should a&b do when they're not bit vectors that would be compatible with this behaviour? 42&69 should return 42 because it's the lesser; 0b&1b returns 0b because it's the lesser... Mathematics is already quite comfortable with the relationship between logical-and and min, so this has a precedent.
• yiyus 7y ago
  > "harmonises" in the sense that it takes one of the most common programming symbols and changes it? I don't know of anyone that sees "2 & 3 = 2" and thinks "yeah this makes sense". There are a few of us in this thread, trying to explain why. You find outrageous that 2&3=2, almost everyone (all the non-programmers of the world) will find more outrageous that i=i+1. You get used to it quite fast. It's obvious as soon as you realize that, with booleans, min is and, and max is or.
  • gjulianm 7y ago
    > will find more outrageous that i=i+1 Yep, it is hard to understand. That's precisely why I don't like having even more unintuitive things. > It's obvious as soon as you realize that, with booleans, min is and, and max is or. But it's not min and max with the rest of types.
    • geocar 7y ago
      > But it's not min and max with the rest of types. Yes it is: & is min for all types including boolean, where it is "and" as we can see above. Similarly | is max for all types including boolean, where it is "or". You can convince yourself in binary, or pick up > it is hard to understand. That's precisely why I don't like having even more unintuitive things. If I tell you something is "intuitive" I do not mean you should find this approachable knowing what you know. Just as statements on "readability" I find this personalised definition doesn't promote a meaningful discussion, as it depends too heavily on social factors. Now I don't deny those social factors are important, but if you really mean that, you're basically rejecting learning anything about X because (as at least as a factor) nobody else knows it. Are you sure you want to be that person? Does anyone? No of course not. We want to be scientists and evaluate these tools on their own merits. If they are truly new and novel, then we would not expect them to be popular, and so we cannot (if we are to be good scientists) reject them for that reason. It is for this reason I recommend when someone says "it is readable" we always interpret it to mean if one knows how, and similarly, "it is intuitive", should have an implicit when you are thinking a certain way. If we do not do this, then we cannot get any value whatsoever from what the other person is saying; if I truly imagine this is what the mean -- that they mean they do not have any interest in being a good scientist and having a discussion about the merits, then they're definitely not worth talking to. So let me say something about "intuition" under this definition: To me, it is important to understand the relationship between the intuition I can have (or generate) about something, and the memorisation and taxonomy that something requires. "&" is extremely intuitive in this sense because it always has the same definition for every type (It always means the lesser). Most things in k are intuitive like that, and those things that are not, tend to be useful enough that they're worth memorising. An example of something like the other is "?" which usually means "draw" (As in, that's the most common meaning). You might say 10?100 to draw ten numbers from 0-99. But what would `x?`y? How many is an `x? So k gives another definition to this form (enumerate). This is not intuitive, but if the definition is useful, we will memorise it. This one turns out to be useful. For the most part, and in the way that I mean, k is very intuitive, and where it is not, it tends to be useful. These are good things!
• gjm11 7y ago
  Just as a datapoint: I have never written any code in APL, J, K, Q, etc., and I think & = min is perfectly defensible. If I had to switch regularly between K and (say) C or Python where & is bitwise (also perfectly defensible, of course) I'd probably find it irksome and make mistakes from time to time, but I don't think it's an unreasonable choice. (But: I am a pure mathematician by background, and the idea that logical AND is a special case of MIN is pretty familiar to us. The thing whose only values are TRUE and FALSE is a particular Boolean algebra. A Boolean algebra is a particular kind of lattice, and lattices have MIN and MAX operations, though we usually call them MEET and JOIN instead. I would expect & = min to be less comfortable to people with different backgrounds.) [EDITED to fix an inconsequential typo.]