I am a software developer and I understand your motivations completely. Hopefully my experience will help you. We as developers want something deterministic and concrete in order to engage with the markets. The markets, however, don't behave that way. The sooner you come to grips with that fact the happier you will be. We are dealing with a probabilistic environment and no set of rules, no matter how complex will take care of all scenarios, so the name of the game is taking asymmetric trades where the downside risks and the upside rewards are tilted in your favor. The reason most developers cannot make money in the markets is we are looking for something that gives us certainty which cannot be had. There is no algo. that will work hands off all the time in every environment. Having said that we can use our skills to overcome a lot of the human biases that can get us in trouble. Start with automating small parts of the process. For instance, if you are having trouble hanging on to a trade long enough? Automate the exit process with a trailing stop while you enter it yourself and then walk away. Taking emotional trades due to FOMO? Specify exactly what scenarios will make you enter and make sure you algo doesn't let you execute unless all checks are a go. Fear of entering the market? Execute the algo when the context is correct and then walk away and let your algo enter the trade. The point is, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Automate small parts and over time you will have something that will work like your assistant and helping you succeed. The best of both worlds. Have executive control with your superior human intuition and let the algo take care of the emotional side that is preventing you from success. Don't get too much in the weeds about what language or platform to use. Use whatever you're most comfortable with and will get you going fast. Believe me, you can end up spending years and many dollars and sleepless nights over this. Good luck.
Why would I do that? Read the threads, it is already established that IB, a very prominent broker/platform supports the Mac! I do not wish to get this thread a Windows vs Mac pissing contest but by saying the most popular or widely used OS is just plain stupid. Most speculators in the markets are wrong, most people who vote are stupid (thus electoral college). I already posted an article arguing the merits of a MAC vs. Windows purely based on reliability and security, I am too lazy to repost. Windows maybe a little cheaper on average but read this Wired article. https://www.wired.com/story/rant-switching-from-mac-to-windows/
I have never written that one is better than the other. I don't really care which one is better. I was more questioning your "cloud-based' statement.
Frankly, I am just stating my observation of what is being used. Not convinced of any merit of using the cloud but many pro or pseudo pro algo traders use the cloud. The best example is the Zurich based firm that many HFTs use, algotrader.com
You seem to be confused about terminology and are using buzzwords too much. You keep mentioning algotrader.com, I look at their website and there's nothing about HFT. HFT cannot be done by retail traders, we cannot gain sub 1ms edges over other participants with our platforms and definitely not with our financing. Automation != HFT. Cloud simply makes sense because cloud providers have superior uptime due to having good grid connections + generators on site for interruptions. Rarely do home/office users have this at this level. Cloud providers also have far better connectivity in that the network is better organized and the routes are thought out for superb reliability, unlike home ISPs. Potential for co-location also minimizes risk and latency, which are important. For example someone living in a developing country and updating EOD data through servers in NYC can take an hour, whereas a cloud VPS located also in NYC will take 5 minutes. Latency goes from 150-300ms to 4-5ms...
Algotrader the Swiss fintech startup is a host for individual and professional trading bots. Some could be HFTs, how do you know they are not? They use the Amazon Cloud service. What part of this do you fail to comprehend?
There cannot be any HFT trading using something as slow as Amazon cloud. You do not understand HFT latency. There is a reason HFT firms built direct lines from NJ to Chicago and have private connections between London and NJ -- by the time your Amazon AWS has arrived at a trading decision, the opportunity is already long gone, it's that big of a difference.
There are many kinds of Bots used commercially and maybe right or wrong I refer them as HFT it is not Joe Trader in Long Island. I do not think Option Market maker Bots need the speed you refer to, that is why they pay for order flow. Perhaps these kind of computers are not the ideal definition of an HTF, so my bad.
Option Market Maker do need the speed and low latency. PFOF (payment for order flow) has nothing to do with that. The Option MM world is a very competitive one. They all compete against each other. You're right, they are many types of Bots, but HFT are a special type of them.