It’s time to start learning quantum programming. IBM and Microsoft are two companies that I have spent some time recently with learning about quantum programming. IBM has a good intro course that is lecture based with a more detailed transcription. Microsoft has something they call ‘Learn with Azure Quantum katas. The katas introduce the material in much smaller chunks and it’s all written and interactive with their web-based Q# programming tool. While the learning formats are different, they both provide the detailed background in the math and quantum concepts.
I have been learning with three different tools/simulators.
- Azure Web Based Q# coding tool.
- Microsoft QDK which offers both Q# and Python options in visual studio code.
- IBM’s QisKit
The following screen shots show an example of a circuit in each of the tools. At this point in my learning I prefer the Microsoft Visual Studio Q# environment.
Azure Web Based Quantum Simulator
This online Q# coding environment is a good place to start experimenting with quantum coding and the training materials use this environment through out the learning. The interface is easy to work with, you have copilot on the right to help you dig into questions, explanations, insights etc.
Azure Quantum | Quantum coding with Copilot in Azure Quantum
Microsoft QDK
The Visual Studio Code QDK environment is currently my preferred environment. You will notice in the screen shot below between line 5 and 6 are a couple cool commands. The Circuit command displays the circuit you see on the right hand side. This is really good to validate that you have coded a circuit correctly if you are coding from a circuit diagram. After clicking run at the bottom in the debug console window you can see the out of DumpMachine and / or DumpRegister.
IBM QisKit
A python jupyter notebook environment offers very similar capabilities but not quite as cleaned up as some others. This is likely to change in time. IBM appears to be putting a lot into the quantum space.
I just finished up my IBM Basics of Quantum Information course and starting in on a number of other courses related to Quantum.
Now on to more training and not too far out in the future adoption of quantum computing for the masses.
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