q/kdb+ IDEs

What is an IDE?

An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development.

The boundary between an IDE and other parts of the broader software development environment is not well-defined; sometimes a version control system or various tools to simplify the construction of a graphical user interface (GUI) are integrated. Many modern IDEs also have a class browser, an object browser, and a class hierarchy diagram for use in object-oriented software development.

How does it help me?

Using an IDE for q/kdb+ development has the following advantages (over CLI based development):

1. A permanent 'notepad' for writing code (without needing to execute it)

2. Multi-line code execution.

3. Ability to execute specific parts of code, specific lines, etc.

4. Nicely formatted results

5. Save process details and easily switch between processes

6. History of executed commands

7. Charting/graphing and exporting of data

8. Function/namespace indexing and search 

9. Debugger

10. (In the case of VSCode and IntelliJ) - access to full codebase including ability to edit source files, git commit, etc.

How does it work?

What IDEs are available?

The following q/kdb+ IDEs exist:

1. KX Developer (KX)

2. QPad (Oleg Zakharov)

   • Pros

     1. Excellent for running Q code

     2. Results are displayed in table format and can be popped out into separate windows

     3. Excellent process connection and management capabilities

     4. All queries are stored in a text file so can be retrieved at any time 

     5. Some abilities for charting

   • Cons

     1. The free version is only available on short licenses, which the developer renews every so often. This used to be renewed like clockwork, but it is now months between renewals (and the application is unusable without it)

3. qStudio (TimeStored)

   • Pros

     1. Excellent for running Q code

     2. Results are displayed in table format and can be popped out into separate windows

     3. Within the same app you can connect to other databases e.g. SQL

     4. Tabs are (sometimes) kept on restart/crash

     5. Some abilities for charting

   • Cons

     1. Process management could be better - you have to manually 'add' a connection rather than being able to just connect directly to a host+port. Not great when you just want to quickly connect to a process you just started up on a random port.

     2. Connection management could be better - the application can hang for long periods trying to connect to a running process. And it can hang for long periods trying to connect to host/port with nothing running on it.

     3. Open tabs are not always retrieved on restart/crash. This functionality also seems to break down when you have multiple instances of the application running at the same time. The code does not appear to be stored anywhere else

4. VSCode q/kdb+ extension (Jo Shinonome)

   • Pros

     1. Allows you to run a Q IDE within VSCode - code management and IDE all in one place

     2. Excellent ability for searching codebase for existing functions

     3. Ability to hover over keywords etc to get a description

   • Cons

     1. The free version is no longer being updated

     2. You have to use a '.q' file in VSCode to run your code rather than a tab like in other IDEs. This usually leads to running and updating code directly from the q script - the author's preference would be to keep these separate. Which is possible of course but it never seems to end up that way!

5. Intellij q/kdb+ (KDBInsideBrains / open-source)

6. JupyterQ (KX)