Quote from pairsarbtooo:
Im just saying basically i see a huge trend among programmers is that they are really programmers and not traders. Nothing wrong with that, with making your testing code as cool as possible. I am also saying that too much optimization if it is optimization of your code to make it super cool or over optimization of trading parameters in backtesting to curve fit, all are quite common symptoms of those who really don't want to trade, and use over programming as a proxy for that. By putting an imbalanced emphasis on code, they avoid facing the relevant issues that traders need to face and working on those.
It is better to find a trader that has a passion for trading, they key aspect being able to live in uncertainty, and have him or her learn to code, or have him/her learn enough about coding to know coding is not for them and outsource it to a great programmers, than to find a programmer who is at heart a programmer and hope they can trade, it rarely works, and I don't care how good or cool the programming is. I see most computer programmers as very left brained and needing certainty, that's one of the reasons they code is because they love seeing the computer do the task exactly as they envisioned it. I am not saying it doesn't happen, though. Its just my experience that coding testing and automation may be necessary but not sufficient to trade successfully.
Shape your idea, make the code robust enough to test the idea, then go and trade. I made more money manually trading than many people with automated systems, or just using simple vb code before I learned C++. The only thing code rally helped with was reducing the time I spent actually trading, and helping me backtest new ideas and crunching results so I can give my investors industry specific metrics on the system historical performances before going live. It doesn't negate the set of skills necessary to become a good trader, no programming will likely ever do that.
If you really want to test a system, you can use plug in easy language type programs or just learn a little c++, import your data from a text file, read the data into your code, run your calculations, then output the results. That is easy enough to do after a few weeks of learning the language. Easy to compile, debug and run.
The speed of c++ is necessary when you are searching and sorting because the time is a logarithmic function for complex sorts and searches. C++ gives you so much more flexibility, you can even code your code to change parameters and search for the best results, best sharpe ratios. So you can teach your code to create and test new systems. The is time you can spend doing something else. If you think a fast language is not important for this then I would hardly trust your judgement in code and/or trading. It is very significant when your increase the complexity of your code by one or two orders. Did i mention it's the fastest? So you are telling me speed isn't important.............................seriously?????
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