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Microsoft Open Source Operating Systems Programming Software Technology

Microsoft Launches Open-Source Quantum Katas Project On GitHub To Teach Q# Programming (betanews.com) 37

BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: Microsoft seems eager to get programmers on the quantum bandwagon, as today, it launched the open-source Quantum Katas on GitHub. What exactly is it? It is essentially a project deigned to teach Q# programming for free. "For those who want to explore quantum computing and learn the Q# programming language at their own pace, we have created the Quantum Katas -- an open-source project containing a series of programming exercises that provide immediate feedback as you progress," says The Microsoft Quantum Team. "Coding katas are great tools for learning a programming language. They rely on several simple learning principles: active learning, incremental complexity growth, and feedback."

The team further says, "The Microsoft Quantum Katas are a series of self-paced tutorials aimed at teaching elements of quantum computing and Q# programming at the same time. Each kata offers a sequence of tasks on a certain quantum computing topic, progressing from simple to challenging. Each task requires you to fill in some code; the first task might require just one line, and the last one might require a sizable fragment of code. A testing framework validates your solutions, providing real-time feedback."
You can view the project on GitHub here.
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Microsoft Launches Open-Source Quantum Katas Project On GitHub To Teach Q# Programming

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  • There are many indications of lack of social ability at Microsoft, in my opinion. One example: Don't give a product a name that can't be spelled easily with letters from the alphabet.

    "Q#" is not a sensible name. "Q Sharp" is not a sensible name. When someone hears the name for the 1st time, will they think it is "Cue Sharp"?

    One product should not have 2 names.
    • Exactly. That is why languages like C and C++ and C# never caught on and things like Rust did.
    • "Q#" is not a sensible name. "Q Sharp" is not a sensible name. When someone hears the name for the 1st time, will they think it is "Cue Sharp"?

      . . . and here I read it as "Q hash" . . . as in, "Don't Bogart the bong, Captain Picard!"

      Can you do Q# on Linux . . . ? Or do you need a Windows Phone for it . . . ?

    • by Opyros ( 1153335 )
      Queue the comments from people who don't know the difference. (And yes, I really do want the comments to line up in orderly fashion!)
  • Don't they need a use case for the solution before they know what features they need?

    The reason that:

    Quantum computers will be able to do calculations that we can only dream about today, potentially...

    is that we don't know yet what they can do that is useful. Of course we can only dream about it when we don't know what we want it to do!

    Once somebody builds something powerful enough to do something, then it gets more interesting to ask what people can do with it. What exact features does the system have? Don't know, building them is still too hard to say! Presumably the feature-set that works at scale will

  • or maybe not

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 23, 2018 @05:37PM (#56997416)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Anonymous Coward

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      That. That is the original Q. I, nor anyone else working in AI or machine learning, have the slightest fucking idea what Q# is other than yet another attempt by microsoft to embrace, extend, extinguish a language.

      you'd think after 30 years of this shit they'd learn to quit.

      The Q language has nothing to do with quantum computing (other than both their names start with a Q).

      • The Q language has nothing to do with quantum computing (other than both their names start with a Q).

        And more to the point, Q [wikipedia.org] and Q# [wikipedia.org] have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The similarity in names is purely coincidence: they are unrelated.

    • > I, nor anyone else working in AI or machine learning, have the slightest fucking idea what Q# is

      yeah, if only someone would post a helpful article with links to introductory material, maybe the source code. _something_ at least, jeez!

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      I got caught up in the idea of "learning a language for free", think about that for a moment. Learning for free, so basically as far as M$ is concerned my time is free, my effort is free, my worth is zero. This stuff is getting annoying, corporations thinking your time, your work, your efforts are worth nothing and to be exploited for free.

      I don't learn for free, it takes real time and real effort. A really funny thing when you think about it, "we ran the first Q# coding contest and the response was tremen

  • The musical alphabet goes from A-G, each of which has a corresponding sharp (#) or flat (b). There simply isn't any Q#. And if there was, would it be the same as R?

    As everyone knows, Unix was originally written in B#.

  • by Camembert ( 2891457 ) on Monday July 23, 2018 @08:45PM (#56998112)
    I had a very quick look at the tutorials overview and contents. Despite the cynism here on the forum, I find this initiative an interesting and laudable way to learn about a fascinating topic. It sure is very different and difficult to grasp, but probably worth spending effort on, even if only for personal enrichment.

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