quil-lang

qvm

Common Lisp2019–2024

quil-lang / qvm

qvm

The high-performance and featureful Quil simulator.

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3Distinct people

17Mentions

0Explicit recommenders

454GitHub stars

REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

The high-performance and featureful Quil simulator.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

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Also in these discussions

quil-lang/quilc · linked in 2 of the same discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 9:01:12 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year17 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2019-02-28 19:04:06 UTC to 2024-10-16 16:44:28 UTC.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges

UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
Period	Start (UTC)	End (exclusive, UTC)	Mentions	Submissions	Comments
2019	2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	8	0	8
2020	2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	3	1	2
2021	2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	3	0	3
2022	2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	1	0	1
2023	2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0	0
2024	2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2	0	2

What Hacker News says

8 sources

reikonomusha·Nov 18, 2019

I help build quantum computers, and a good chunk of the software is written in Lisp. The quantum compiler and simulator are in Lisp and they’re open source. [1,2] [1] compiler https://github.com/rigetti/quilc [2] simulator https://github.com/rigetti/qvm

In Beating C with Common Lisp

reikonomusha·Sep 29, 2019

It is deployed to end-user machines. [0] It’s also open source. [1,2] [0] https://www.rigetti.com/forest [1] https://github.com/rigetti/qvm [2] https://github.com/rigetti/quilc

In SBCL 20: Steel Bank Common Lisp's 20th Anniversary Workshop

reikonomusha·Sep 18, 2019

Alongside the development of quantum hardware, which has ever-growing qubit numbers and ever-increasing fidelities and coherence times, there’s also software that’s getting more and more sophisticated. Most quantum computer providers have their own APIs for programming their machines [1,2,3]. Python seems to be the popular choice for these APIs. But one piece of software I’ve been particularly interested in, and indeed contribute to, is Rigetti’s open source optimizing compiler called quilc [4,4’], which is a sort of a GCC/Clang for quantum computers. It’s the only open-source compiler of it’s kind. They also have a high-performance simulator [5], which is used sort of like a debugger. (Perhaps surprisingly, both are written in Common Lisp.) What is very useful about the compiler is that it is retargetable, and can compile for even IBM’s

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architectures of tomorrow. You just give it an “isa” at the command line describing how many qubits it has, how they’re connected, and which gates they support, and quilc will happily compile and optimize your program for that architecture. [1] Rigetti’s pyQuil https://github.com/rigetti/pyquil [2] IBM’s Qiskit https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit [3] Google’s Cirq https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq [4] quilc https://github.com/rigetti/quilc [4’] quilc at FOSDEM https://youtu.be/qwfMzzKJDXI [5] quantum virtual machine https://github.com/rigetti/qvm

In IBM will soon launch a 53-qubit quantum computer

reikonomusha·Aug 18, 2019

This is the document [0] we maintain for new Lisp hackers at Rigetti, where we use Common Lisp to build open source quantum software development tools. Following that, here’s the rundown of some basic Lisp nomenclature and how to edit in Emacs [1]. The article isn’t bad, but it also doesn’t provide you with a sustainable way to develop Lisp; interactive and incremental development together form a great proportion of value of using the language in the first place. [0] https://github.com/rigetti/qvm/blob/master/doc/lisp-setup.md [1] https://github.com/rigetti/qvm/blob/master/doc/editing-and-r... (PRs are welcome!)

In Getting Started with Lisp in 2019

reikonomusha·Jul 6, 2019

We use Common Lisp to build compilers and simulators for quantum computers at Rigetti [0,1]. I wouldn’t consider the development stagnant. SBCL makes regular releases, including huge improvements (e.g., ported to risc v) and bug fixes. It’s easy to find commercial support for Common Lisp as well. I love Scheme and Common Lisp both, but CL is quite a workhorse when it comes to difficult, professional work on teams. [0] https://github.com/rigetti/quilc [1] https://github.com/rigetti/qvm

In SBCL – Past, Present, Future [pdf]

reikonomusha·Mar 31, 2019

To add to cutting-edge (& open source) scientific applications, Rigetti Computing uses Common Lisp for their quantum optimizing compiler [1] and high-speed quantum simulator [2]. [1] https://github.com/rigetti/quilc [2] https://github.com/rigetti/qvm

In The Programming Language Conundrum

reikonomusha·Mar 16, 2019

I use Common Lisp professionally for work, and I love using Emacs and SLIME for editing Lisp. But over the past decade or so, I’ve also learned to maneuver around Emacs, and give it the attention it needs to become somewhat proficient at it. In the case of others, I’ve observed much less patience. Patience maybe isn’t even the right word; perhaps it’s just an unwillingness to invest in something that doesn’t really communicate an obvious return. Many of my coworkers, especially those who want to edit a little bit of Lisp but don’t want to make it their life story, really wish there was a better editor. Many of them Python programmers, or even technical folks with a non-programming background, really aren’t sold on this whole Emacs thing to edit a weird language. Out of the box, you have to look up the plethora of cheat sheets and commands

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and figure out why GUI Emacs doesn’t see your PATH and why changing the font doesn’t stick and .... They do appreciate the likes of Atom, PyCharm, Jupyter notebooks, etc. with big beautiful GUIs with big beautiful menus and slick websites and “out of the box” support for what they need to do. Pop-up suggestions, dedicated terminal windows, etc. “Obviously” Emacs can do these things, if not better and with more breadth, but it’s all hidden behind The Model of Emacs Thinking (TM). I really look forward to efforts like Lem improving. I hope they try to do at least one thing really well—editing and interacting with Lisp—and not 100 things poorly (e.g., trying to replace Python editors out of the gate). A great Lisp editor will be such a boon for the language, maybe as important to its rebirth a decade ago as Quicklisp was to it. Lisp is such a wonderful tool, and I want folks to see the great industrial uses it has. Selfishly, I also want to see more contributions to my own Lisp projects on GitHub. To the extent Lem can facilitate that, I’m entirely on board. (If you’re looking for some cool things to hack on in Lisp, try quilc [0], qvm [1], or maybe even Lem itself!) [0] https://github.com/rigetti/quilc [1] https://github.com/rigetti/qvm

In Lem: A Common Lisp editor/IDE with high expansibility

reikonomusha·Feb 28, 2019

If you’re interested in hacking on some modern Common Lisp code, Rigetti Computing (which sells access to quantum computers) open-sourced their SDK, which includes a high-performance quantum simulator called the QVM [1] and an optimizing compiler quilc [2] for their quantum programming language called Quil. All of it is written in CL. [1] https://github.com/rigetti/qvm [2] https://github.com/rigetti/quilc

In Let’s LISP like it’s 1959 [video]