lv1.sh

The essay from lv1.sh starts with

Twenty-five years with k and q. I did not want a new language. I wanted to rebuild the engine underneath it.

This hit me really hard for two reasons:

1. I have an on and off relationship with K an Q since 1998 when a friend first showed it to me. But I have not really invested much time in it. However, early versions of K were written by Arthur Whitney in something like 100 lines of (very idiomatic) C code. And as someone else said, “Well, if he did it in 100 lines, maybe I ca not it in around 1000 lines”. Which is a belief I also share. I never really did.
2. I have a thing for interpreter implementation (I know my limits and where a hobby should stop). I have a number of books on DSLs and interpreters (notably Ramsey‘s and Kamin‘s), but really nothing to show beyond reading about them. I also understand that I do not have a vivid programming language design imagination. So at best all I care is a working interpreter, not even an optimized one.

But alas, I do not have 25 years on the technology I want to copy. And a couple of other mistakes too.

Anyways, to continue self-inflicting pain on me:

#alias q='rlwrap ~/q/m64/q'
#export PATH=~/.kx/bin:$PATH
alias q=~/src/q/l_m64

Maybe I will redo the first chapters from Nick Psaris‘s books using L.