Arthur Whitney (computer scientist)
| Arthur Whitney | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1957 (age 58–59) |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | Computer scientist |
| Years active | 1988-present |
| Employer | Kx Systems |
| Known for | Co-founder Kx Systems |
| Notable work | A+, K and Q programming languages |
Arthur Whitney is a Canadian computer scientist most notable for developing the APL-inspired programming languages A+ and K and co-founding the company Kx Systems.[1]
Career
Whitney studied pure mathematics at graduate level at the University of Toronto in the early 1980s. He then worked at Stanford University.[2] He worked extensively with APL, first at I. P. Sharp Associates alongside Ken Iverson and Roger Hui. He also wrote the initial prototype of J, a terse and macro-heavy single page of code, in one afternoon, which then served as the model for J implementor, Roger Hui, and was responsible for suggesting the rank operators in J.[3][4] In 1988, Whitney began working at Morgan Stanley developing financial applications.[5] At Morgan Stanley, Whitney helped to develop A+ to facilitate the migration of APL applications from IBM mainframes to a network of Sun workstations. A+ had a smaller set of primitive functions and was designed for speed and to handle large sets of time series data.
In 1993, Whitney left Morgan Stanley and co-founded Kx Systems with Janet Lustgarten to commercialize his K programming language.[6] The company signed an exclusive agreement with Union Bank of Switzerland and Whitney developed a variety of trading applications using K until the contract expired. At the outset of the contract Whitney developed the kdb database built on K.[7] In 2003, Kx Systems released Q, a new vector language that built upon K and the kdb+ database developed by Whitney.[8]
Whitney serves as a board member at Kx Systems.[9]
References
- ↑ "An Interview With Arthur Whitney, Kx CEO and Developer of Kx Technology". Kx Systems. January 4, 2004. Retrieved June 1, 2016.
- ↑ "A Conversation with Arthur Whitney". ACM Queue. April 20, 2009. Retrieved June 1, 2016.
- ↑ Iverson, K. E. (1991), "A personal view of APL", IBM Systems Journal, 30 (4): 582–593, doi:10.1147/sj.304.0582.
- ↑ Hui, Roger (1992). An Implementation of J (PDF). Toronto: Iverson Software Inc. pp. 74–75.
- ↑ Taylor, Stephen. "Impending kOS". Vector. Retrieved June 1, 2016.
- ↑ McDonald, Clare (June 1, 2011). "Janet Lustgarten, CEO at KX Systems, on Shampoo Apps, Databases and Founding Her Own Company". Computer Weekly. Retrieved June 1, 2016.
- ↑ Garland, Simon (December 28, 2004). "Q Language Widening the Appeal of Vectors". Vector.org. Archived from the original on January 1, 2007. Retrieved June 1, 2016.
- ↑ Eadline, Douglas (September 9, 2014). "Working Down the Column: The Kdb+ Community". Cluster Monkey. Retrieved June 1, 2016.
- ↑ "Management". Kx Systems. Retrieved June 1, 2016.