Machine Learning and Big Data with kdb+/q

CHAPTER 4Editors and Other Tools

We are already equipped with enough knowledge to work with q. We have so far seen how to invoke the console. In this chapter, we focus on editors and tools we can use to work with q more efficiently. We intend to briefly introduce various tools and let the reader decide which tool to use for his or her work. Further, we aim to rebut popular but wrong belief that one has to give up on graphics tools when working with q.

In particular, we briefly remind the reader of the importance of the console as a tool for rapid development, and then focus on Jupyterq Notebook, IntelliJ, qStudio, and Q Insight Pad. The information presented in this chapter is valid as of the time of writing the book. It is likely that new or significantly improved editors will appear in the meantime and the information below becomes obsolete. Our main argument, though, should still hold: q is an extremely flexible language and a lot of the necessary tools that a user needs for software development and data science already exist and are adequate for obtaining insights into the data and for the flexible experimentation, research and expansion of their code.

4.1 CONSOLE

The console is a starting point for readers who have been following our book since the beginning. We have also discussed some useful options we can use when we invoke q. It is essential that our reader is familiar with the usage of the console since its interpreter makes starting with an idea very quick. It is ...