Python or C++

bln · Jul 29, 2017

yabz said:
I would need a good reason to switch to Go as a general language....

Go got many benefits over Python, some of the top of my head.

- produces binaries just like C/C++/Fortran
- excellent concurrency functionality, no thread management needed for parallel execution
- strongly typed
- very good and efficient garbage collector
- no problem with legacy Python v2 packages not working in Python v3
- python is slow in terms of execution speed, something it shares with Ruby.
- smaller foot print, doesn't have to ship a whole runtime inside Docker container images

Python is a good language that I like to use too, everyone has different needs and wants.

viruscore1 · Jul 29, 2017

yabz said:
C++ is faster, but python easier to code. C++ is also more widely used but python seems to be trending now.

I'm inclining towards Python certainly for financial applications.

serious coders use c, c++. But you can use python ...
https://www.experience.com/alumnus/...id=technology&source_page=additional_articles

userque · Jul 30, 2017

yabz said:
To print 'Hello world' in Go you have to write:

import "fmt"

func main() {
fmt.Println("Hello world")
}

In Python:
print 'Hello world'

I would need a good reason to switch to Go as a general language....

https://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/compare.php?lang=go&lang2=python3

Macca1 · Jul 30, 2017

userque said:
https://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/compare.php?lang=go&lang2=python3

Yes sure. But what about Python + Numba, or Python + Cython

userque · Jul 30, 2017

Macca1 said:
Yes sure. But what about Python + Numba, or Python + Cython

I believe Golang is much better at using all threads.

Golang is a cleaner solution than marrying Cython/Numba with Python. I believe there are certain coding restrictions and compatibility issues with Cython. And I don't believe Numba speeds up all of the python code.?

viruscore1 · Jul 31, 2017

avoid obscure programming languages unless you're into pain. They will only hurt you in the long run. It take years to become fluent in any programming language. The financial world is complex enough and now we need to be programmers also. Find the data feed and trade execution api's you plan on using and program in it's native language where possible.

yabz · Aug 4, 2017

For people thinking of using C++ its worth reading what Linus Torvalds thinks about it.

truetype · Aug 4, 2017

That's a period piece, from 10 years ago.

yabz · Aug 5, 2017

truetype said:
That's a period piece, from 10 years ago.

Has he changed his mind? Interestingly Dennis Ritchie didn't think much of C++ either, although he wasn't as blunt...

Aquarians · Aug 25, 2017

I've skimped through the conversation here but seems to me like Java was hardly mentioned? Not to go as far as to actually consider it...

I did and still do both C++ and Java. At work C++, for my own stuff where I don't have to suffer, I use Java, hands down. Much friendlier to the developer, superb IDE (IntelliJ), compiles much faster, tons of stuff in the *standard*library and virtually everything in third party ones. Performance... well, if you use IB API then Java is not the issue here.

Don't know Python and I shy of starting to learn it and I mean not the FOR I = 1 TO N "learn XXX language in a week" meme but really knowing the standard libraries, OOP idiosyncrasies, exceptions, logging, threading, memory model, networking, databases, GUI, build systems, testing, deploy systems.

For small scripts I have Perl. For serious stuff I use Java.