[HN Gopher] Hello Many Worlds in Seven Quantum Languages (2021)
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Hello Many Worlds in Seven Quantum Languages (2021)
Author : donutloop
Score : 49 points
Date : 2022-02-15 06:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ionq.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ionq.com)
| 2fast4you wrote:
| Is there a good resource for learning about programming for
| quantum computers? I'm looking at this and realizing just how
| much I don't know.
| quaintquant wrote:
| I think this talk is an excellent 'foot in the door' intro.
|
| Should provide a solid foundation, and plenty of insider jargon
| to follow up on!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Riqjdh2oM
| rpmuller wrote:
| The "Mike and Ike" book is the standard introduction to the
| field:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Computation_and_Quantu...
| da-bacon wrote:
| IBM has a nice online resource for learning quantum computing
| using their framework (Qiskit)
| https://qiskit.org/textbook/preface.html
| fouc wrote:
| > But today, as quantum computers with dozens of qubits are being
| built, and systems with hundreds or even thousands of qubits are
| on the horizon, the complexity of programming a quantum computer
| requires a more structured approach. This has led to the birth of
| a large number of quantum programming frameworks and languages,
| ranging from fully-fledged programming languages like Microsoft's
| Q#, to Python frameworks like IBM's Qiskit, to basic assembly
| languages like QASM.
|
| I'm guessing this is QASM https://www.quantum-
| inspire.com/kbase/cqasm/
|
| Interesting graphics there. Seems like programming for quantum
| computers is an act of building "circuits"
| nilslice wrote:
| Yes, at a low (assembly-like) level, "circuits" define how a
| series of gate operations are applied to qubits. Various
| abstractions make this easier, including the languages and
| frameworks mentioned in the linked article.
|
| Interesting to note is the recent formation of the Linux
| Foundation's QIR Alliance[0], which has specified a quantum
| intermediate representation within LLVM to bridge the quantum
| software/hardware ecosystem.
|
| [0]: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press-release/new-quantum-
| in...
| rackjack wrote:
| First we build circuits, then we build languages, then we build
| everything else
| wzeng wrote:
| The cQASM that you link to is one of the flavors of QASM.
| Another commonly used one is openqasm whose 2.0 and 3.0 specs
| are here: https://github.com/Qiskit/openqasm
|
| Along with QIR like as is listed in the comment, these are two
| open assembly specs with collaborative governance. Another is
| Quil: https://github.com/quil-lang/quil
|
| While quantum computing has a history of using circuit diagrams
| (which are still very useful) to represent programs. These
| languages have representations under the hood that look a lot
| more like assembly. For example:
| https://github.com/Qiskit/openqasm/blob/master/examples/adde...
| da-bacon wrote:
| Oh this looks familiar! I left off my favorite
| https://github.com/dabacon/qsel (have never used this to run
| against a real device).
| rpmuller wrote:
| What? No Jaqal?
| https://www.sandia.gov/quantum/Projects/QSCOUT_Jaqal.html
| da-bacon wrote:
| Write a Jaqal IonQ API interface, and I'm sure they will add it
| (I no longer work for said company)
| thatcherc wrote:
| Interesting - 6 of the 7 languages discussed are Python
| libraries. Must be going for the more DSL type of language. Of
| the ones mentioned, looks like only Q# and QASM aren't Python-
| based.
| Smaug123 wrote:
| Q# originated as a DSL in F#, which has extremely strong DSL-
| creating capabilities in its [computation
| expressions](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/dotnet/fsharp/language-refe...). See
| https://devblogs.microsoft.com/qsharp/why-do-we-need-q/ for its
| history.
| da-bacon wrote:
| Lot's of reasons for this. Mostly having to do with the minimal
| size and sophistication of current quantum programs, and the
| background that many of these efforts arose from Physics teams
| where python is heavily used. One of the most popular non-
| Python based version of these sorts of frameworks is
| https://yaoquantum.org/ which is in Julia.
| gowld wrote:
| > minimal size and sophistication of current quantum
| programs,
|
| For that, I'd expect a simple standalone like Verilog or ASM.
| kingcharles wrote:
| The fact that all the major cloud providers have their own PAYG
| Quantum Computing setups, and I can sit here in my underwear and
| write quantum code, is quite frankly mind-boggling.
|
| BRB, going to put my cat in a box...
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