Symbolic quantum programming for supporting applications of quantum computing technologies

The goal of this paper is to deliver the overview of the current state of the art, to provide experience report on developing quantum software tools, and to outline the perspective for developing quantum programming tools supporting symbolic programming for the needs of quantum computing technologies. The main focus of this paper is on quantum computing technologies, as they can in the most direct way benefit from developing tools enabling the symbolic manipulation of quantum circuits and providing software tools for creating, optimizing, and testing quantum programs. We deliver a short survey of the most popular approaches in the field of quantum software development and we aim at pointing their strengths and weaknesses. This helps to formulate a list of desirable characteristics which should be included in quantum computing frameworks. Next, we describe a software architecture and its preliminary implementation supporting the development of quantum programs using symbolic approach, encouraging the functional programming paradigm, and, at the same, time enabling the integration with high-performance and cloud computing. The described software consists of several packages developed to address different needs, but nevertheless sharing common design concepts. We also outline how the presented approach could be used in tasks in quantum software engineering, namely quantum software testing and quantum circuit construction.