That's a bullshit, non-professional answer if ever there was one. If someone told me to do that, I'd tell'em to take a hike. P.S. ... and just in case anyone is wondering, there is absolutely nothing personal about it. It's all business. Pure and simple.
With all due respect, I clearly think that was a great answer. As I said many times the people coding for the retail industry are bad coders. All the great one are with the video games industry...
BS, gaming industry is probably the worst place to be for a programmer. Exceptions apply (i.e. entrepreneurs like Carmack).
With the same respect given, there are plenty of coders who understand that they are working with mission critical applications, where failure during market hours is not an option. This is particularly true at this stage of the game where you have so many brokerages (I could list them if you like) vying for such a small (retail) market, and willing to give them what they need. It's just too easy to go someplace else if one provider isn't giving the end market the tools and support they need to compete in (what is reality) a viciously competitive, dog-eat-dog, industry. I find brownsfan's suggestion to be highly offensive, and your acceptance of it, along with your allusion that there is no talent in this industry and that is why the retail market should accept sub-standard tools, to be just plain ridiculous!
It seems to me to be more about management of the technology function in general not just about coding. Personally I think the problems we've seen this week are more related to network capacity planning & management at OEC & their ISP / network partners. I'll say it again - I've had price lagging problems with OEC BEFORE the weekend - the only reason I know this is because I have a 2nd broker/price feed to compare. The problems after the release were similar (with price lags on the quoteboard) but also MUCH worse (disconnects, reconnects, no prices..) I trade from London, Uk. The reason I say its a network capacity related is because in the morning (London time) the OEC platform is just fine - it matches my other broker feed tick for tick. This was the case BEFORE the s/w release at the weekend and is generall the case AFTER the weekend aswell. The price lag problems for me start around 12.00-2pm London time - I'm guessing as more OEC traders in the US begin to log-on. The price lag problems are worst during the final hour of trading. Whether its coding or network or whatever, there should be processes, procedures and controls in place to stop this sort of fiasco happening. It's simple OEC do not have these controls in place. If they do have controls they are not effective OR the technology department does'nt have the tools (or the budget to buy the tools) to manage its network capacity or programmers. It seems whenever there has been a major s/w release over the last couple of years an OEC fiasco follows. The OEC platform is great value in many ways (free charts, data, decent commissions) but they need to get a grip of this underlying management issue. I no longer use them as my primary broker and won't use them unless they can resolve the price lag issue and manage their s/w releases.
I didn't want to go there, but a few of the posts on this thread have gotten me irritated with their absolute nonsense, and I see that other traders on the Board have consistently had bad experiences with the brokerage. So here is another thread that saxon22 started when he had problems with Open E-Cry. Open E Cry, What a Dissapointment! P.S. Trading is a game of finding specific patterns and exploiting them ... does anyone see a pattern here? LOL
"Because these are the people who really benefit from those improvements , al lthey want is build the most technologically advanced platform so the company's assets are more valuable and they can be bought out and get filthy rich. " from Kicking in this : http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=174981&perpage=6&pagenumber=4 "It's just too easy to go someplace else if one provider isn't giving the end market the tools and support they need to compete in (what is reality) a viciously competitive, dog-eat-dog, industry."MandelbrotSet I totally understand your point. However when you look at this industry in a large view you will see there is everywere problems with their software. Look at the forum page : Oanda with the Jpy, IB with Es, now OEC has some issue... in only 2-3 days... And If you look further you will see that all the "retail" brokers have technological problems. "P.S. Trading is a game of finding specific patterns and exploiting them ... does anyone see a pattern here? LOL " This always around big market turn around. I have so many ideas of the reasons behind the scene. But they are to conspirationnist for you to listen...
Us retail brokers don't have yet realised that there are too retail traders in Europe... So a Eurotrader for a Eurex ( Dax ) order has to cross the ocean once to reach the Us order server, then the signal cross again to reach the Eurex, the cross to come back to the us server and then recross to the customer... ( or there is a eurex server in the us... ) any how the order don't get to a german server and come back...
Interactive Brokes Oanda Open E-Cry *** You've just named three of the most problem plauged brokerages listed on Elite Trader, thanks for the warning. You're obviously a shill for Open E-Cry, so I'm not gonna waste too much more of my time talking to you. See ya.