3 ms·

These languages come up here every now and then; they look very interesting, but it also seems like they must be very heavily optimized to be as fast as they ar

These languages come up here every now and then; they look very interesting, but it also seems like they must be very heavily optimized to be as fast as they are. So, sorry if this is a dumb question, but does K run on architectures other than x86/64? I checked https://kx.com/ https://kx.com/ but I couldn't find a definite answer. They mention IoT a lot, which makes me think it might run on embedded devices too?

SifJar 7y ago
kx also have a version for ARM (available here https://kx.com/download https://kx.com/download ). Note this is the non-commercial version, not sure if they have a commercial version for ARM. Their frequent mention of IoT is (I think) more to do with storing data from IoT devices, not directly on the devices themselves. Shakti (Arthur Whitney's current company) has also mentioned a wider support of architectures I think, but at the moment their k (k9) is in pretty early stages, still x86/64 only I think. There are various other open source implementations of k (posted elsewhere on this HN thread), some of them might also support other architectures (although they won't have the performance of Kx/Shakti versions).
- leggomylibro 7y ago
  Ah, that makes sense - thanks. I guess that's just for Cortex-A ARM cores? I was hoping to try a lean language like this on a fast micro like the new Teensy boards, but I suppose those kinds of chips probably aren't used very much in their target applications like HFT. I do wish that people would stop using "IoT" to mean "sending tons of data to the cloud", but I guess that's how the buzzword crumbles.
kick 7y ago
It's not really that heavily optimized. It's just really small.
- aw1621107 7y ago
  That's really interesting! What allows k to be so small compared to interpreters for other languages? Does it come down to the semantics of the language itself?

SifJar 7y ago

kx also have a version for ARM (available here https://kx.com/download https://kx.com/download ). Note this is the non-commercial version, not sure if they have a commercial version for ARM. Their frequent mention of IoT is (I think) more to do with storing data from IoT devices, not directly on the devices themselves. Shakti (Arthur Whitney's current company) has also mentioned a wider support of architectures I think, but at the moment their k (k9) is in pretty early stages, still x86/64 only I think. There are various other open source implementations of k (posted elsewhere on this HN thread), some of them might also support other architectures (although they won't have the performance of Kx/Shakti versions).

leggomylibro 7y ago
Ah, that makes sense - thanks. I guess that's just for Cortex-A ARM cores? I was hoping to try a lean language like this on a fast micro like the new Teensy boards, but I suppose those kinds of chips probably aren't used very much in their target applications like HFT. I do wish that people would stop using "IoT" to mean "sending tons of data to the cloud", but I guess that's how the buzzword crumbles.

kick 7y ago

It's not really that heavily optimized. It's just really small.

aw1621107 7y ago
That's really interesting! What allows k to be so small compared to interpreters for other languages? Does it come down to the semantics of the language itself?