Wayne: its probably a nice way to present your project. But if you say your goal is to be programmer friendly, you need in depth docs anyways. I know writing docs sucks, is time-consuming, expensive and no one wants to do it, but it would save everyone, tz support included, a lot of trouble and resources. VisualStudio/C# would only be half as useful without MSDN, guessing its the same with tz (maybe to a lesser extent). And i think the class reference would say 100 times more about a project than any feature matrix. Also, prospective clients can evaluate if/what progress is being made. I don't know (yet again) where you are going with this. Last thing i heard from you is that tz is a 'secret weapon' for only a select few chosen ones and therefor this information (changelog, forum, docs, ticketsystem) is confidential. OTOH there is your continued marketing effort/ET sponsorship for new clients. I don't know if this is the case, but if tz is that good and you are looking for prospective clients, i think you should be more transparent with these things (cat in the bag n'all).
Agreed. The main problem with documentation that must be avoided is that software documentation in general is always out-of-date even if it's "mostly" good. Furthermore, for open source code, often the source code itself like TZ is by far the best, most accurate, and current documentation. However, we have 3 solutions to provide good documentation beyond making 90% of functionality open source. First 1. Absolute commitment to intuitive naming and renaming of properties, methods, classes, and variables. Current users often report they find what they need easily using the "autocomplete" features in the IDE. For example, we use very clear, common names for things like BarCount, FullPointValue, etc. This form of documentation is only useful for sophisticated traders. Newbie traders will feel lost if they don't already know the basics. 2. The next step in documentation is to put comments on properties, methods, and class in a standard format so that it can have automatic generation of documentation. PLUS, those notes appear in autocompletion in the IDE. In this case, we only plan to comment those which are non-obvious to experienced traders as explained next. 3. Finally, there are concepts in TickZOOm which are non-obvious from the classes, methods, and properties and need a more "wholistic" explanation. Those get covered on the wiki. Also, there are some properties and features that don't exist in other systems so they're often new to TZ users--so those some explanation since they're new concepts. There's several new and very useful concepts and abilities in TZ due to it's design which make automation of strategies drastically easier. Those get explained on the wiki. Most programmers would agree with you because they were never really trained at technical writing. Personally, I had a lot of training and experience at technical writing and people often comment about the clarity of my technical writing. When you're good at something you tend to enjoy it more. However, the lack of focus on documentation is directly a result of the input from current users. Once you're a user or trial user of TickZOOM, pippi, your opinion will have a lot more weight. The current users agree more documentation would be good. But they that feel certain other features are more necessary as a priority. Not so. The MSDN is necessary because Windows uses a closed source policy unlike TZ. True, .NET is viewable via decompilers, but you can't easily traverse the code or make changes to it and recompile like in TZ. Sure. It will come, in time. This again, comes back to the focus of energies on caring for current member needs as a priority to new members. However, if people keep joining and voting for features ahead of documentation then, well, that kind of documentation may never happen. The users will decide. TZ allows individual users to pay money to raise priority of tickets either individually or share the cost among themselves. So one or more could force more documentation to get done if they care that much. That is correct except that the decision was made to be more transparent about the how and why of the selection process. Specifically, it's purpose is to limit the number of new users and only accept them at intervals that are convenient to really focus on getting the new users up to speed. It will be most inconvenient for everyone if new users can stop the train and board at any time. Also, it will only harm everyone if TZ gets overloaded with more users than support personnel. Finally, obviously, users that depend on more documentation will not be the ideal people to join at this time. If they want to we'll give them a chance if we have enough openings. Pippi, what is OTOH? If it were as transparent as it was before, some people, Pippi, will watch and read about TickZOOM to get free ideas for their own software, TZ competitors, or institutions. Often the MOST valuable part of software development is the requirements and design. Anybody can code. I've architected systems where I did the requirements, design and then contractors where hired off the street to code it up. The true, best value in TickZOOM is the very information that you seem to want publicly available. So, I'm very sorry, but that level of "transparency" won't happen, it appears. Instead, that's the huge bonus people get for the 2 week trial. Then they can decide whether to use the information to roll their own or simply join TickZOOM. Sincerely, Wayne
Fixed. Rephrased again and split into 2 rows whether primary source of revenue from new users (one row) or primary source of revenue from current users (other row). Actually, I fixed this too. It was by putting blanks in those cells instead of "No"s since I since that more accurately indicates the need to verify the answers.
You mean like the way you "stole" information and ideas from contributors here on ET when you were falsely claiming the project was going to be open source? Don't even try to deny you didn't steal many ideas from people here on ET. And don't try to deny that is why you keep coming back here; to suck yet more information from ET members. Case in point: this entire thread is about you trying to steal further ideas from users of competitor products. You're doing competitor analysis on the cheap and the generous ET posters are once again helping you out so that you can make $$$ from the fools that are going to be willing to pay you the $15,000 that you're asking for the code that converts ticks into bars...hilarious. Anyone with a brain will see that you've been contradicting yourself over and over since you've been on ET and that you are about as trustworthy as a paper condom. Luckily for me, you claim to have me on ignore (due to my "immoral ET handle" LOL) so I won't have to put up with your long-winded and irrelevant reply that you otherwise would have tried to give this post.
I don't know the history and haven't used TZOOM -- but I have to ask -- how can one "steal ideas" from e'trader discussions? (1) Anyone can read the material on e'trader -- if you have something that can be "stolen" -- don't post it (2) Since when is the content on e'trader (other than the odd nugget here and there) _worth_ stealing -- or even, for that matter, worth reading? Maybe I'm missing something -- ?
Chart has been greatly improved by recommendations from the Business Development and Marketing Consultant. The top chart was replaced with one that indicates the skill level at trading or programmer best suited to each platform. All the blank squares were switched to "?" to encourage people to fill them in. And finally, the services section was condensed to only a few items. http://www.tickzoom.org/wiki/TickZoom/Comparison It looks much better overall. It's still a draft. Feedback still welcome from vendors, users, or anyone. Wayne
Rodney, I never saw the original post you responded to because that person's nickname was on "ignore". But I'll take a stab at answering. Only person who used the verb "steal" was bm. Anyone who posts on ET understands they're giving it all the public. I'm grateful for those who have shared and on other threads I share ideas for trading software. Using those ideas found on ET is never "stealing" although verbatim copying will be a copyright issue. Correct. Totally. Well, frankly, people have shared great ideas on ET that TZ benefited from along with a whole bucket full of useless ones. Just like anything, you have to sift the wheat from the chaff. Admittedly some good tips came in PMs from great traders who were willing to give a nudge in a certain direction but unwilling to publicly post. They rarely, almost never give the details of exactly how to do things. Just a pointer in the right direction and you have to do your own homework. My contributions to ET are all in the same vein. That's also why I don't want detailed documentation and implementation of TZ public. The specifics of exactly how to do stuff takes enormous time and effort to figure out. Let them just use the checklist to figure it out if they don't want to sign up for the FREE trial. Most on E.T. who really have valuable knowledge or tools wish to let others do their own homework--figure out the details themselves. It's often difficult to take any "position" on ET, as you know. If you do, your position will get savagely attacked by a few people that affectionately get called "trolls". If you're smart, you see a couple posts like that and "ignore" that person. That keeps life much more peaceful for visiting ET. No. You had it pegged right. Just wanted to share my perspective on sharing of information. Sincerely, Wayne
Yes you are. Nevermind though. Congratulations for giving this character another chance to spew more BS. He's turning into a pathalogical liar too - he claims I used the word "steal" before...all of my posts are here on ET for anyone to check out. He on the other hand was caught red-handed and admitted that he used an alter alias here on ET as a shill. Pure and simple deception. The hypocrite then claims he put me on ignore because of my "immoral handle" LOL. Anyway, anyone who's dumb enough to fall for this deserves to have their money separated from them. Good luck.
Just a note to clarify something and also be fair. First we appreciate those who contributed ideas. We're also working out an plan to make an exclusive offer only to those who can prove on elitetrader or tickzoom wiki or forum that they personally suggestted ideas that TickZOOM is or will be using. At the same time, it's important to correct some false statements that, apparently, some detractors who are on my ignore list made earlier in this thread. Or at least that's what someone said via email. It seems it was claimed that TickZoom is one of those products that was built by many people freely contributing to the code and then closing the source and selling the work. While that's generally legal, pretty much everyone agrees it's unethical. That was never the case with TickZoom. I personally built TickZoom entirely from scratch except for a graphics library and few other things whose licenses are compatible to integrate with TickZoom. True, TickZoom was opened to the public for free and open source for several months to become an open source project. What actually transpired was that about a dozen people contacted TickZoom about contributing to the project. They were excited about the quality of the code and wanted to join. Most even signed and emailed a Contributor agreement guaranteeing the software would always be open source to them in return for contributing code. Amazingly, not a single one of those people ever contributed a single line of code. None whatsoever. Most were never even heard from again. Later people who became paying members did contribute some code. During the free, public period a number of beta testers used the software and reported install problems (fixed), defects (fixed) and requested enhancements (some fixed others still on the list). So the only real contribution was in the form of beta testing. Those users already received bonuses, free licenses, or other benefits that they're happy with as a token of gratitude. Interestingly, it was only paying users who ever contributed any code. That's right. Even during the trial when contribution was voluntary, a number signed up and paid to support the project. Those users have all contributed at least some code to the open source project. So, you see, TickZoom was never a community-built, free open source project. However, it has become a commercial, community enhanced, open source project instead. And that is working well. Sincerely, Wayne