Exactly. There's an art to using the right tool for the right job. C++ has some good use cases. Mathematica has some other. Excel do excel in many ways of prototyping, trying out simple but flexible things, and learning fast. One thing is the process of learning it. Then you can spend time playing with it. Just have fun! Something else is to design something that will bring some value to you. What kind of qualities are you looking for, for which purposes? Something for research? Trying out creative / innovative ideas? Heavy-duty calculation? Real-time execution? Here also, it should be fun! And not too much work or complexity to maintain. The idea that one size should fit all, for simplicity, is not a practical ideal to aim for. Yes, it's *possible* to do all that in C++ or even Excel. Experience is knowing that the end result doesn't always have to be 100% correct, too structured / rigid or even beautiful. Often, there's value in making something in a few hours just to try it out, and avoid overoptimizing it too early, which usually become a big waste on the average. If you tell yourself beforehand you will throw away all your code, and do it, you become so much more creative and efficient. At least don't marry your code. It's like marrying a position. I've lost count over the years of time spent coding on useless things that never became truly useful. I mean, I learnt alot, but optimizing and grinding out libraries, was just useless as an end result by itself.
I was under the impression we were discussing developing trading algorithms, not operating systems. Maybe you would also suggest using Assembly language? Way better performance , and using all that high-level stuff (as in C++) is for lazies
Hi K-Pia, I'm also studying both Stroustrup's major books on C++: Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++, **2nd** Edition -- Bjarne Stroustrup (AKA. Birds book) C++ Programming Language, The, **4th** Edition -- Bjarne Stroustrup (AKA. Mountains book) People very often confuse these two books, one being much more advanced than the other. Modern C++ is my choice for a general purpose programming language outside of the web browser environment, and maybe within it soon. I have many years experience using other languages. We have formed a free study group in Austin, Texas. http://www.meetup.com/cppmsg If you, or anyone on elitetrader, would like to study together with us, please let me know. We are also seeking senior C++ programmers as mentors to help teach the others. We could form a subgroup to work specifically on writing algorithms for prediction and trading. I'm interested in applying the power of C++ to these purposes. ++Regards
Learning c++ to making stock market strategy tester , why not . Decent motivation. But c++ learning curve is steep and it massive language. Later java should be easyer to learn. And once gotten around to point where can implement most ideas it´l probably give low level thinking profile. With assembly on modern cpus probably very complex to make better than compiled in higher level languages.(so many dif registries etc to learn and could use wrong). But for some very resource critical part of program why not learn/program more to have program later make less inefficient moves. Best if 1 person in 10 000 learn asm and make compilers/drivers so everyone else can do easyer.