Quote from CPTrader:
Fundjunkie,
You are clearly a big fan of Traders Studio as I used to be and there is inherent bias in your comments.
I suppose I am biased as I am not actively researching the market. But I am far less biased than most who choose to post around here. But that being said, anyone and everyone is biased - that's what opinion is.
As you metioned it's the separation of session and tradeplan that attracts me to the product. I am also exploring the use of the API to serve my programming needs which are sometimes quite advanced - or so I'm told.
I'm not really all that interested in anything else as everything on the market comes across as commodity and not giving me the flexibility (fredom) to implement what i want how I want it.
Tradersstudio doesn't give me that either but it's solid in the areas that matter. I acknowledge your point about performance but as a pragmatist I don't find it gets in my way. You're either doing huge backtests/optimizations or are, perhaps, more impatient than me.
For ordinary traders looking to backtest and do some research it's more than decent and good value for money. Believe me, I do have a go at Murray regarding how the product stacks up and where it is and should be going. but that doesn't mean i trash it for what it is now. And quite honestly, everything else I lay my hands on is fundamentally poor vs my key criteria.
Quote from CPTrader:
Intermittent beta releases with minor tweaks or bug fixes for bugs that shouldn't exist in the first place - is not what I consider improvement.
I would agree with you. But you know aswell as me that is exactly what componies do. they roll up a set of bugfixes and expansion of the codebase as a new point or major release.
I repeat, everything that vendors out there are doing is commodity. They never surprise me with anything they offer or add to their products. Their primary target seems to be to serve people drawing trendlines on charts rather than people like me wanting to accurately and flexibly express their ideas in code.
Quote from CPTrader:
Let me comment on the speed issue:
I repeat the speed is ATROCIOUS ; consider this I was able to convert an existing system to a new platform, modify it and set it up within literally a few minutes â about 30minutes or less- and this is for a language that I am still learning â and the backtesting of this system occurred LIGHTNING FAST!
I don't see how converting a set of system code would ever take much more than 30 minutes once it has been initially realised on the source platform.
My issues with tradersstudio's coding environement is that it is not C# (my preferred lanuage) and that it doesn't have a proper IDE. This is why I'm investigating the API. I'll then be able to everything in C# and have much greater power available to me.
The speed issue is a legitimate concern. But it is relative, not absolute. By that I mean, it depends on the type of backtests you're undertaking - you're pointing out that backtesting performance doesn't scale well and i agree with that. However, for the vast majority of users the type of testing they'll be doing will be handled fine by Tradersstudio.
Quote from CPTrader:
Note also that this is a fairly long system â over 10 pages long. I am still amazed at thisâ¦and infuriated at how much time and effort I wasted with Traders Studio â the same system in TS would take me days while dealing with frequent inexplicable crashes. This raises another point: TS is incredibly unstable â crashing multiple times each day
A larger system exposes the user to the potential of type mismatch errors and suchlike which Tradersstudio doesn't always handle appropriately. I have already discussed this with them - that exception handling needs to be improved as some of the errors thrown will only confuse the end user.
I experience some crashes but not as many as you suggest. They generally correlate with magnitude and quantity of coding errors. Maybe I'm more experienced with generating exception free code than you are? I'm not trying to be condescending with that remark btw. You could, in fact, be far more experienced than me - I'm not a pro developer.
That said, some of the exceptions that do occur should be handled more gracefully than they are. But believe me, I've used other products tha really are buggy. Tradersstudio has nothing on them.
Quote from CPTrader:
3. Support for TS is becoming very weak. I am a trial user of another competing product...and even as a trial user (still not well versed in the product) the support I have received
has been EXCELLENT!
Well, I can only say that i have received good support although my issues often need to go to Murray or a developer.
Quote from CPTrader:
4. I am sure I am not the only one who shares these opinions of TS...just look on ET and there are/were many people who came to TS and have now gone elsewhere. Additionally, TS lacks the deep engaged user base you will find with other platforms⦠That fact alone is very telling.
I'm unware of the many who came and went but it is a free market. How do you define a deeply engaged userbase? I am a deeply engaged user but don't post on forums asking people how to do stuff - I don't need to.
I agree that the forum isn't as busy as it could be. I think that's the fault of two things:
- Lack of moderator engagement. leadership and mentoring through that engagement.
- Lack of overt ement from users like me, I suppose.
Quote from CPTrader:
Perhaps you now see my frustration.
I do, and I also get frustrated with TS too. I suspect your frustration curve is somewhat steeper than mine. As i see it some key differences characterizing my view in contrast to yours are, amongst other things:
- I know that other platforms out there would frustrate me just as much or more than TS.
- I don't see the need to publicly slate a product generally out of frustration with some of it's shortcomings.
- I always weight benefit against cost. From a cst benefit point of view Tradersstudio is still good.
Thx
D
