stjordanis / kxl

Experimental spreadsheet UI for kdb+/k4/q

kxl - experimental spreadsheet UI for kdb+/k4/q

Spreadsheets are a population stereotype for the visual programming paradigm. kxl is an exploratory prototype that matches the accessibility of the spreadsheet UI with the power of the array-based programming language.

My initial intention was to make k more accessible and understandable to beginners and business users. However, in creating this prototype, I found that not to be the case (and thus left it unfinished). The spreadsheet UI is too limiting and does not cleanly demonstrate how k works. I figured I would share this prototype anyway in case it sparks someone else's imagination.

Instead, I realized during the creation of this prototype that I would like an 'explain' command that essentially does a step-by-step evaluation of code, printing the intermediate results/data structures.

For example:

  explain 1+/1+1 2 3
   +/       +
10 <- 2 3 4 <- 1 2 3

Or simply printing at every step of the recursive ascent:

  explain 1+/1+1 2 3
1 2 3 -> 2 3 4 -> 10

I noticed that Geo Carncross (geocar) uses a similar approach when explaining k code to beginners (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9122299, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTrOg19gzP4, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8476633).

RodgerTheGreat/JohnEarnest added the 'explain' command to oK, his k5 REPL in JS. Try it by prefixing an expression with \x.

For example:

Welcome to oK v0.1
(inspired by K5)
  \x 1+/1+1 2 3
1 + 1 2 3 --> 2 3 4
1 + 2 --> 3
3 + 3 --> 6
6 + 4 --> 10
1 +/ 2 3 4 --> 10
10

Dependencies

• kdb+/k/q

To run

1. Drop html/ and kxl.q in the q directory.

2. Start the kdb+/k/q web socket server:

   • Linux: /path/to/q/l32/q kxl.q -p 80
   • Windows: /path/to/q/w32/q kxl.q -p 80

3. Browse to http://localhost/kxl.htm