Best programming language for trading?

Just start programming. Getting replies on a message board dissecting the "best language to learn" is a waste of time. Just get stuck in and learn.

 

I would not recommend C++ as you first language. It is much easier to make programming mistakes such as memory corruption in C++ than in Java, or C#.

 

They created a scripting language just for Thinkorswim? I didn't know that. What was the justification?

 

vendor lockin

 

Exclusivity doesn't seem to make much sense when TDAmeritrade wants a competitive platform that appeals to the broadest possible customer base. Bad management decision?

 

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."
-Lewis Carroll

 

I used to do perl but perl is poor when it comes to financial modules. Abandoned it years ago and rewrote everything in Python. Haven't regretted it.

Python is fast enough for 99% on ET. You can also move math heavy processes to C, giving you all the speed you need.

Python development speed is unbeatable in my opinion and for once you can understand your own code from years ago due to forced indentation. The modules you get are incredible and save tons of time.

C# seems pretty nice too.

 

Being proprietary and being stupid.

 

My take. They just want to create a trading platform with charting for the general masses, the moms and pops. Since the moms and pops don't program so they didn't think to create a programming capability with any formal languages or didn't want to dedicate any of their resources to them. Instead they must've dedicated their whole resources in developing charting and the user interface for TOS cuz the charts in TOS and the user interface are the nicest that I've ever seen. For those moms and pops who want to draw some lines on their charts and enter some trades, they created Thinkscript. Thinkscript is highly high-level, the whole codes is all pseudo codes; you can write an English essay in Thinkscript. There is no looping, no iteration, no looking back/calculating back of bars , a conditional control structure with forced "else" condition. The whole thing is horrible.

 

This is the https request to Yahoo Finance with cookie and crumb already setup.

my $url = 'https://query1.finance.yahoo.com/v7/finance/download/' . $etic . '?period1=' . $period1 . '&period2=' . $period2 . '&interval=1d&events=history&crumb=' . $crumb;

$h = new HTTP::Headers();
$h->header('Cookie' => $cookie);
$user_agent = new LWP::UserAgent;
$request = new HTTP::Request ('GET',$url,$h);
$response = $user_agent->request($request);
$content = $response->content;