Excel vs TradeStation

D

dima777

I am not a big expert in TradeStation programming but I find it immensely more easy, satisfying and time-saving to code and debug my strategy ideas directly in Excel than in TS (I use no VBA). I wonder if anyone has the same experience.
Thanks
 
You must be delusional.
Easy Language has a whole host of features, facilities, functions, you-name-it that is lacking in Excel. Easy Language was built specifically for trading, Excel was not. It has no knowledge of "OpenPositionProfit" for instance....you must code that yourself.
The one feature of the circular buffer in Easy Language whereby you can reference prior values of ANYTHING...indicators, functions, prices, etc. is something not easily replicated without a ton of VBA code in Excel. Oh, it can be done, but again, not easily.
Want more examples ? How about the maxbarsback variable ? This alone took Tradestation developers a long time to get "right"...and it's a critical value for any automated system.
 
Quote from syswizard:
You must be delusional.
Easy Language has a whole host of features, facilities, functions, you-name-it that is lacking in Excel. Easy Language was built specifically for trading, Excel was not. It has no knowledge of "OpenPositionProfit" for instance....you must code that yourself.
The one feature of the circular buffer in Easy Language whereby you can reference prior values of ANYTHING...indicators, functions, prices, etc. is something not easily replicated without a ton of VBA code in Excel. Oh, it can be done, but again, not easily.
Want more examples ? How about the maxbarsback variable ? This alone took Tradestation developers a long time to get "right"...and it's a critical value for any automated system.
More...

Yes... facilities is the key.

People use a platform because they don't want/need to re-invent the wheel.
 
p.s. I know 3 people who have their automated system in Excel. It can be done. It all depends on your programming expertise, and the requirement of your system. All 3 people are professional programmers, they have pushed Excel and VB* to the limit. This is not something I would suggest to anyone off the street, unless your system and/or requirement is VERY simple.
 
thanks for your replies....excel is millions of light years ahead of TS in terms of immediate code debugging (you simply see what is the current value of any set of discrete variables and how their interaction unfolds -in ts the debugger simply is very clumsy), dynamic array construction...you can easily code in Excel any indicator from ts by looking at its ts code....easily store any single past value of any variable for later operation - in no time at all....etc
 
Dima, What method do you use to get realtime quotes into excel? I'm interested in using Tradestation to do this and would like to hear your experience.
 
As others have pointed out, TS is was designed working with for time series data, Excel has its uses, but IMHO analysis of time series data for multiple symbols is not one of them.
 
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