TickZOOM Decision. Open Source and FREE!

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Hi Wayne,
I think that you must keep the link to user suggestions and contributions. Open source is perfectly suited for this.

On the other hand, you CAN'T possibly include all user's contributions and suggestions.

So I think that the project should have a core professionally developed, maintained and evolved, built on user suggestions and contributions that could possibly be shared in a kind of functional contributions / modules pool, archive, or whatever you want to call it.

Your responsibility would be the core project only, and the reward of user whos ideas / codes are included in core could be something interesting.

We are talking about a trading software that some people will depend on to make a living...... top quality and reliability is critical not to get a bad reputation at start.

Koros
 
You're right of course. Someone said the exact same via PM.

Sincerely,
Wayne

Quote from Koros:

Hi Wayne,
I think that you must keep the link to user suggestions and contributions. Open source is perfectly suited for this.

On the other hand, you CAN'T possibly include all user's contributions and suggestions.

So I think that the project should have a core professionally developed, maintained and evolved, built on user suggestions and contributions that could possibly be shared in a kind of functional contributions / modules pool, archive, or whatever you want to call it.

Your responsibility would be the core project only, and the reward of user whos ideas / codes are included in core could be something interesting.

We are talking about a trading software that some people will depend on to make a living...... top quality and reliability is critical not to get a bad reputation at start.

Koros
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There is one point about this latest discussion that needs clarifying.

Some of this is based on the reality that I'm a lone programmer and need to avoid taking on too much.

That's true right now, of course. But I don't think that's wise nor do I plan on that long term.

Eventually, I plan to gradually include several other full time people while keeping this small.

The first person to bring on would be someone to handle first tier support and questions. That way more of my time is focused on development, testing, etc.

Next would be probably a part time office manager to handle paper work and other distractions from coding.

Finally, another junior programmer who can assist with more tier 2 support and some development tasks also like actually fixing bugs, etc.

FYI, I have tried already both in the corporate world and in my own business to act as a "manager" but found I ended up spending too much time coding.

So, developing is my first love and my most "value add" to the project so the plan will be to bring on people who can allow me greater focus in that area.

What happens beyond that only time will tell.

Make sense?

Wayne
 
Quote from mikesmithv:

You mean tickzoom.org I assume, tickzoom.com takes you to another site.
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Yes. That was a typo. Actually, I own that domain too. So I could point it there in case people get confused (like me!!) I'll see if the admins can handle that.

Wayne
 
Folks, you can follow a blog-like discussion of how to convert an AmiBroker formula to TickZoom C#.

Just go to tickzoom.org and click the Usage menu item on the left and then AmiBroker.

It's a work in progress. Someone needs to send or post the AFL code for WMA.

The I can get it working and post a chart.
On that page you can post questions or comments.

I prefer to get this and the EasyLanguage part done before releasing because I still have time to change some thing if people have any issues.

Wayne
 
Release plan for TickZOOM.

Folks, I expect some feedback on this please.

I'm considering an Alpha Release first before the Beta release.

Why?

Well, due to having the flu this week I lost valuable time in finishing the release work.

So now I have only enough time left to do either:

1. Finish fixing known issues, cleaning up the code, testing.

2. Documenting the API.

But not enough time to do both.

And yet, I committed to releasing after these holidays and many of you are really looking forward to "getting your hands" on TickZOOM.

So I'm willing to release it entirely, this weekend as an Alpha version.

Alpha means that it is NOT ready for Beta testing.

If many of you agree to alpha first, them my remaining time will be spent finishing working on the code, fixing, testing, refactoring, etc. till Sunday.

Then Sunday night you'll get access to the alpha release. Plus the source code will be browsable on the website.

Then during the Alpha release, I can focus on documenting the interfaces, the API the help classes, etc.

During the alpha period, here's you you can do:

1. Download, install, run and try it out.

2. Ask questions on the Nabble forum ( After releasing, I will only answer alpha or beta questions on the TickZOOM forum because we need to keep each question in a separate, new thread, organized. The admins won't allow that many TickZOOM threads here.

3. Now, instead of simply answering questions directly in the forum, I will document the answer on the Wiki, with an example, chart, etc, and then refer you to the wiki page.

That way, all questions will contribute to improving the documentation.

4. If you figure something out you can [add or edit a wiki page yourself]. Those kinds of contributions will be rewarded when the time comes. Email mail me privately for details.

5. You can report defects or enhancement requests on the site.

However, during the alpha period only "show stopper" types of defects will get fixed because of time being focused on documentation.

After a few weeks, when all the major documentation and questions are satisfied, we can then switch to Beta Testing mode where resolving defects will become the focus.

Just keep in mind that the system is thoroughly and constantly being tested right now. So don't expect any major defects. But you will surely find things to enhance.

What do you think of this plan?

Wayne
 
Some cool progress.

The AmiBroker "Quick Start" is now, I think, finished.

You can see the resulting chart from TickZOOM and the two sets of code for AFL and TickZOOM C#.

TickZOMM added some additional small features into TickZOOM to make it even simpler.

One new features is making it possible to pass anything into a formula as the "price" parameter whether it's another indicator or an array, regardless of it's type and without casting because you can't cast arrays from of one type to another any way.

My last step is to make an EasyLanguage quick Start and the finish releasing the code.

Sincerely,
Wayne
 
Wayne, does TZ 'understand' currencies? This is a topic that most retail-level software does not support at all. Neoticker doesn't do it at all, and OpenQuant does it completely wrong.

It effectively means i can't test FX strategies on a portfolio level nor test strategies with securities denominated in different currencies (i.e. CME and Eurex futures), since without converting the PnL to the account base-currency the equity-graph and subsequent performance metrics are more or less useless.

Its not so much a problem for simulations with only a single instrument, but its still desirable to have your results in your home currency (i.e. the equity graph for a longer term test for USD/JPY will look quite different in EURs or USDs. Most software isn't even able to compute the correct PnL for USD in this example).

Getting this right would set TZ apart from most other solutions i tried.

There are quite a few other things that might be worth thinking about if you want to support them later on and possibly account for it now in the early stage of your project. I'm talking about concepts like expiration, maturity, rolling, interest rates (and their term structure), multileg instruments, simulation of the whole contract complex of a futures instrument incl. back- and frontmonths (as opposed to tests on artificial continuous contract data), and so on.
 
Quote from Pippi436:

Wayne, does TZ 'understand' currencies? This is a topic that most retail-level software does not support at all. Neoticker doesn't do it at all, and OpenQuant does it completely wrong.

It effectively means i can't test FX strategies on a portfolio level nor test strategies with securities denominated in different currencies (i.e. CME and Eurex futures), since without converting the PnL to the account base-currency the equity-graph and subsequent performance metrics are more or less useless.

Its not so much a problem for simulations with only a single instrument, but its still desirable to have your results in your home currency (i.e. the equity graph for a longer term test for USD/JPY will look quite different in EURs or USDs. Most software isn't even able to compute the correct PnL for USD in this example).

Getting this right would set TZ apart from most other solutions i tried.

There are quite a few other things that might be worth thinking about if you want to support them later on and possibly account for it now in the early stage of your project. I'm talking about concepts like expiration, maturity, rolling, interest rates (and their term structure), multileg instruments, simulation of the whole contract complex of a futures instrument incl. back- and frontmonths (as opposed to tests on artificial continuous contract data), and so on.
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Pippi, these are all fascinating questions. Currently, TickZOOM only automatically converts currencies to USD.

I have and understand the formula for converting them to any of the major currencies.

But all that stuff is easy. I mean, it just a formula.

Remember, TickZOOM separates out the performance stats, optimization, and other such logic as "separate" from the primary engine and therefore, by definition extensible by yourself.

Still what would be cool is to build up a community library of functions for doing things like that. And of course, to convert any currencies, it would need a feed of currency prices.

THAT TickZOOM will be able to handle very shortly--multiple instrument feeds simultaneously.

AND what is your home currency?

NOW, as to all your other issues about expiration, rolling, etc. Those are more futures based issues that TickZOOM does not address. But I will love for it do so and plan to add that, especially because TickZOOM will become popular with ES and such traders.

And some of those things might affect the engine so it can automatically switch contracts at N days before expiration, etc.

HOWEVER, have you ever looked at QuantLib?

It's a C++ library which seems to have ALL KINDS of cool stuff like that. It even has "calendars" for all the different world markets so you can know when the different holidays are and such.

It has pricing models for options, etc.

I don't recall but it might have the expiration issues.

I'm thinking how cool it would be to integrate it with TickZOOM.

Wayne
 
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