Iverson College

Iverson College hosts residential events for array programmers and those interested in vector programming languages.

We met last in 2024 back at our original venue, Trinity Hall in Cambridge.

This year we return to Milden Hall in Suffolk, 6–10 September, with DefconQ for a q-only event.

2026 – DefconQ at Iverson College

What we did wrong

The Dean and Warden of the College are both romantics about the k & q languages. When KX announced a module manager for open-source q packages, we announced “DefconQ at Iverson College” – a meeting to plan and start building community q packages.

Kdb devs are realists. Licence prices restrict q usage to corporate silos that manage their own code libraries. Devs saw no use case for community q packages. Few people registered for the meeting. We saw no option but to cancel it.

What happened then

In California Jacob Loveless announced his l interpreter with 100% coverage for k, q and qSQL. Fast as kdb. Faster. And free to use. For anything.

This changes the landscape completely. The k and q languages can at last be used freely. There is now a use case for open-source code libraries – and the community infrastructure that programming languages need.

Jailbreak Summer

Apparently it’s time. Ryan Hamilton’s open-source PeachQ project is up to 43% q code coverage. John Estrada’s korze has about 80%. He will demonstrate it in September at a DefconQ event and invite beta-testers. Jacob Loveless is first – others are on the way.

And that’s just the k/q/qSQL syntax. Charlie Skelton’s vekdb is slouching towards Bethlehem and Fintan Quill is reviving Shakti.

The Suffolk Qkommune

Clearly a meeting is needed to examine the commonalities, and assess and plan for community infrastructure. That will take time to organise; September is too soon.

But some kind of a meeting is shaping up now at Milden Hall 6–10 September. John Estrada will be there with korze, and collaborator Rob Hodgkinson from Sydney. Fintan will come from New York. Dave Thomas, former KX Chief Scientist. Dennis Shasha at NYU has put items on our agenda. This begins to look like Ground Zero for a k/q community.

And our celebrated chef Susanne refuses to be left out.

If this sounds like something you want to be part of, write to warden@iversoncollege.com. Join the qkommunards.

Location

Milden Hall in Suffolk is

• 2 hours by car from London
• 75 minutes by car from London Stansted
• 20 minutes by taxi from Sudbury

Sudbury is 80 minutes by train from London Liverpool Street.