C++, Visual C++ 6, Visual C++.net, C#

Equalizer · Oct 3, 2005

My experiences with outsourcing have been similar to Jason's. They haven't worked, and the cost has thus been higher to fix the shit. This is in 3 different companies.

Experiences of my friends have also been similar.
Just saying it how I'am seeing it, and that is not just one isolated case.
Then again, I do not doubt that there have been some success stories.

vital-statistix · Oct 4, 2005

Quote from mahras2:

There are quantitative funds making multiples of what Livermore made in his lifetime. And this is without blowing up multiple times, filing bankruptcy and committing suicide. And they have a better life to boot.

It is really sad to see personality attacks without the author knowing the person or his educational background.

I offer to you the date of 24 October 1907 on which date Livermoore was asked to stop trading because the market could no longer bear his trading and the economy was in danger of collapse. Livermoore felt king that day and his earning were well in excess of 1 Million that day alone.

Or are you referring to the performance of the quants of LTCM that nearly brought the world economy to their knees with their complex algorithms and that the Fed had to step in?

:eek:

Equalizer · Oct 4, 2005

Oh Man, not another "supposed" LTCM expert (with 1 post to their tally - what would people do without multiple handles/aliases here):eek:

prt_systems · Oct 4, 2005

Quote from kiwi_trader:

PRT, you are the one who sounds like hes running a commercial. LOL.

And the comment about "if they can't do it offshore they fail onshore" is pure self-serving bullshit. Anyone with basic management experience or even training will know that the longer the string the more difficult it is to manage the ball on the end of it.

But I have nothing to sell ..... we aren't in the consulting business whereas the other poster is .... I think you have to make a sensible call on people running consulting firms that make claims that offshore operations are universally poor in quality. This is just not true. There are good operations and there are terrible operations, just like in the US.

This whole debate goes back to labor arbitrage: Commodity skillsets WILL be labor arbitraged with less expensive resources.

...So.. all these compliants and arguments are just noise.

If you really want to stop arbitrage then be creative enough to be ahead of the pack and design systems that put the commodity skillset operations out of business. This wont happen by following the party line from $soft or any other vendor.

Unless you take this approach you will not beat equivalent labor that charges 1/3 - 1/5 the price of an american firm.

Also your management "string" length comment is sophmorish: Global multi national firms manage their global workforces remotely across the globe. Their "string" length is quite long and some of these operations perform very well. You need to get more management experience in large firms .....

nononsense · Oct 5, 2005

Quote from jerryz:

what level of C++ understanding do the wall street quants have in general? 1-2 courses?

a friend of mine who says he taught himself C++ says you can already do a lot if you know how to mess around with variables, write if statements, and do loops. for other more specific things that you need to do for your project, you can search google, look at exampes, and tweak them to fit your needs. is this true?

Yeah.
But why use C++ if you're going to do that kind of stuff.
It's like eating your soup with a fork.

Equalizer · Oct 5, 2005

No-one said Quants have table manners

nononsense · Oct 5, 2005

Quote from cmaxb:

If I were learning C++, I would learn C first.

Makes sense. In fact, about learning C++ or for that matter any other OO language, it used to be that accomplished C programmers (several years of experience) require typically 6 months of training/practice before becoming productive in C++. Of course, you can pretend working C++ but only using it as if it were C. This situation is often encountered.

Today, if you would like to train a programmer in OO, the C/C++ way would probably be rather wasteful. Other languages like Python would be much more efficient at this. C# or Java are also 'high-clutter' languages: very poor for learning OO programming.

nono

cmaxb · Oct 5, 2005

I think it comes down to what you're most productive in. A part of that is the tools you use while programming. If you can code like a god in VB, then stick with what you know. Python, Java, whatever. I happen to like Qt through Visual Studio 6.0. I will probably be using this combo till I'm old and gray...wait..

nononsense · Oct 6, 2005

Quote from cmaxb:

I think it comes down to what you're most productive in.

Agree 200%. Don't forget that you are confronted with two things: (1) Yourself; (2) Programming Tools.
Objectively, quite some differences exist between those tools. Too bad for yourself if you are unwittingly happy with rather poor tools.

Quote from cmaxb:

I will probably be using this combo till I'm old and gray...wait..

It's OK for a tired person already being old and gray. If you are not tired and not old and gray yet, I'm sure you are still going to see many changes in the world of programming tools.

Be Good,
nononsense

prt_systems · Oct 6, 2005

Quote from nononsense:

....I'm sure you are still going to see many changes in the world of programming tools.

Be Good,
nononsense

Yes. Radical Changes realtive to the last 10-15 years. We are at the beginning of what I see as a vast re-engineering of how software systems are produced: the changes over the next 10 years will completely change the nature of what we commonly associate with jobs like softwar engineering and programming. We live in interesting times .....