I think is a bit harsh to say Jack the devil. Actually, his writing helped to greatly expand my knowledge base. U are right his methods are simple, and nothing new, but he never said they were new. His way of communicating is similar to Gann. Easy, but only if you understand the paradigm under which he is writing. B2R, R2B, how hard is that? Really?
None of those acronyms mean anything to me, RCG Trader. I only work with the fundamental elements of charts: hl, lh, br hh, br ll, and buy, sell, hold.
Because I don't like Jack Hershey. He's a fraud, and if I lay out his system in simple perl code and give you datasets to backtest with, it astounds me anybody with that kind of evidence staring them in the face wouldn't try to discover whether he's the liar or any of the research I've done on his system can stand the test of time. It will not, and every time I see him blather psychotically it just annoys me to the point that I will call him out on all of his lies and deceit. The best case and point is the fool who thinks Hershey's system could ever pay off the national debt. That's false, and a myth perpetuated by Jack. If you need to know anymore than I have to to tell you how well his systems work, then you can read his epitaph, otherwise, as far as clueless go the herd can follow Hershey, but I already know that it won't end pleasantly for those who do.
The same could be said about our mutual mentor. My point is that Jack lays out the mechanics of the market. Will a person make 3 x the daily range every day? NO. But in a recent newsletter from our mutual mentor, he made a multiple of the daily range. It can be done. If Jack is fraud, okay. But he does not charge anything. If nothing else, going up his path would newbies what not to do. But almost everyone I have spoken with has derived a benefit from his writings. The Hershey system itself is based on principles and not hard core rules. Markets are contextual. As time has gone on, I have realized this and come to understand that there is a degree of discretion even in the algo trader. The discretion in the algo trader comes from deciding which markets to apply his algo. There are several thousand pages on Jack Hershey, he is up there with Gann insomuch as what has been written and how he polarizes people. You might not like Jack, and that is okay, but I would not discount what he writes. It is a good mental exercise.
No, the only mental excercises you need to be productive are the ones that let you manipulate code and datasets. As far as Bill Schamp goes, Herhsey is nothing compared to him. If Jack wants to teach, he can insert his code anywhere, or you can read mine, because nothing is as annoying as a teacher that never gets to the point, and that's what Herhsey does. He obfuscates even without demonstrating true trading abilities chooses to discuss metaphysical emotions as it relates to trading things like Dom walls; he calls these walls of the dom in some of his posts, and clearly suffers from senility. I think Hershey would do the world a favor to feature his code before he dies, but since he probably will not, he will just have to pass as a character with a long history on elitetrader.