Why l (new runtime for k and q)
The author, a long-time user of K and Q, proposes a new runtime called l to modernize the execution engine without altering the language itself. l is built around four core concepts—SIMD as a default primitive, automatic parallelism, transparent fusion to eliminate intermediate allocations, and runtime-aware compression. These ideas aim to leverage contemporary multi‑core CPUs, GPUs, and specialized accelerators while preserving existing codebases.
- ▪The author has worked with K and Q since 2001 and respects Arthur Whitney’s original language design.
- ▪l treats SIMD as a first‑class primitive, ensuring every operator automatically utilizes vector instructions.
- ▪Parallel execution is integrated into the runtime, with small arrays processed on a single core and larger ones distributed across threads or accelerators.
- ▪Transparent fusion removes intermediate data structures, allowing operations like sum sqrt x to be executed in a single pass.
- ▪Compression is handled at runtime, enabling primitives to operate directly on compressed data to reduce memory bandwidth usage.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Back to blog May 4, 2026 / -jl Why l. Twenty-five years with k and q. I did not want a new language. I wanted to rebuild the engine underneath it. essay I have been working with K and Q since 2001, nearly twenty-five years now. I will say the obvious part first: Arthur Whitney is a genius. K and Q remain extraordinary languages. Their design is small, dense, and beautiful. But despite years of optimization, extension, and correction, the core implementation model is still rooted in Arthur’s original insight from the 1990s. I did not want to change the language. I am not arrogant enough to think I should invent a new one. What I wanted to do was reimagine the implementation for the machines we actually use today. Computers in 2026 are not the computers of 1997. CPUs are wider.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Lv1.
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