tradelink is open source and will let you debug any part of the solution using standard debug techniques like watchs and breakpoints... you can debug just your strategy dll alone as well (don't need entire source code). when I am developing indicators I don't like to use watchpoints, so tradelink also has a tool that lets you export your indicators and examine them as you playback an instrument: http://franta.com/projects/tradelink/kadina.jpg just fyi... snackly... are you ogame.pm on google? just wondering if it was you I was talking about tradelink the other day...
You mean they are not looking to sell the software but be hired by traders to write the strategies for them? Or be hired to help people like me make their software work? Not sure which kind of consultant you mean. I would be more inclined to hire them for anything if I could get the simplest of functions in their software to work and if they presented themselves as being mildly interested in the fact that I'm interested in their product. I don't quite understand how even this model you describe could work when they are basically unresponsive. Thanks for the heads up though.
I think my problem is simply that OQ is erroring whenever I try to connect to TWS. I am doing what one would do, its set to connect on 127.0.0.1, usual TWS port, with a unique client id (nothing else is connecting anyway). It just errors out instantly. In their video they right click and do connect and it connects instantly. So in my case something is not setup right, and I'm going to need someone who knows there to help, which now appears unlikely to happen. Oh well.
The problem with RightEdge is that they don't support tick data backtesting. The new version is supposedly going to have it, and that's supposed to be out this month. But who knows if it will be out, they're late already. Also their forums are slow and while they are more responsive than OQ and friendlier, I was unable to get them to agree to sell me a support contract. I was hoping they would give me 6 hour response on questions and I was willing to pay. The bummer is that Ninja is very quick to respond, but I find their workflow such a pain. I know you can debug with VS.NET and NT, so I may just end up going that route, I've written everything in NT with C# so far. MultiCharts looks good, but there seem to be a lot of complaints on their forums about bugs and there seems to be no way whatsoever to debug it, unlike NT/OQ/RE, all of which are C# and can have the .NET debugger attached. Has anyone tried NeoTicker 4? And what about this? I've never seen this before and it also uses C#. http://www.deltixlab.com/files/BacktestingAndSimulation.pdf
Wealthlab's new 5.x product is native .net code and if you create a DLL in visual studio you can debug it. That said, you can't trade with anyone but Fidelity, and if you live outside the US it's backtesting only, and they charge you an arm and a leg, and you need to keep paying every year or the product stops working. On the plus side, when you complain about a bug they tell you to call Fidelity instead of bothering them.
If you looking for a back testing platform with an in-built debugger, please have a look at TradersStudio. I use this feature quite often. Moreover, this debugger is a lot like the debugger in VBA.
I was going to ask if you tried the VS.NET / NT route yet, but looks like you're aware. It would be nice if they really supported this setup. As it is, it looks like you have to cobble together how to set the environment up with multiple forum posts (no official debugging support). The fact that setting up a real debugger is considered superfluous really says something about these packages. I feel your pain... tradelink looks nice though anyone actually using it for real stuff?
lucky, an assent firm in new york uses it for trading grey boxes. we're building a p&l/risk management tool ontop of it next. an IB firm in london uses a platform built ontop of tradelink to mirror portfolios, but I don't think it's heavy use yet. we just added futures support for a trader in baltimore whose going to trade futures and forex via IB with tradelink. I personally have traded my money with it on Assent and will be trading with it on IB before years end. That is who I know of... I answer questions for it in both elitetrader and the IB forums.
I tried it but the TWS+BrokerServer could not find my running instance of TWS on the default port. Same problem, what is going on?!? This is just whack, because every other app finds it, Ninja, MultiChart, BracketTrader. But now OQ and TL can't see it?