So I'm a 40+ years old software developer with an idea to break it rich in a field stuffed by ruthless competitors. Take a Byte magazine from 1985 when things "were easier" and you'll see what I mean. It was never easy but it was always crowds and exceptions. By the very definition of breaking it exceptional, you can't be but that, although that doesn't preclude being one from the crowd. At my age success means going from infantry to officers. Project managers in IT jargon. So here's my personal project, in recursive reverse order for the fun of it 1) Invest 20 years into #2 while targeting 100x-1000x returns from it. 2) Encapsulate it into a software which can be sold together or piece by piece (microservices). 3) Develop a rock-solid, cutting-edge mathematical theory for trading financial derivatives.
Many things used to be simpler. Unfortunately, or fortunately, now everything is completely different. Much has become simpler, much vice versa - more complicated.
Building a software is tough unless u know what area to be in, know how to model the trade with proper risk parameters, know how to backtest and then finally how to visualize what are u thinking of doing?
a) You need to do it instead of talking about it. b) If you sold software or services that makes everybody that uses it rich, where would the money come from? And would everyone who doesn’t use your software become poor? c) Have you ever heard of any successful hedge funds who cracked the market (like Renaissance, Two Sigma, Citadel, Virtù) selling software and services to other traders? And do you understand why they don’t do that? And do you know which companies sell software and services, and why?
I already did, a lot. There are 100 million projects on GitHub though, one of them is mine. I've also written 10s of thousands of line of proprietary code for my own project(s), not on GitHub. But "doing it" in business has a perverse meaning entirely different from what it means in plain English. It means "being successful". And success is only defined in hindsight: anyone who is already successful has "done it", while everyone else are losers who are only "talking about it".
I would think competition of selling to retail be as fierce as successful ways to trade? 1985 was easier cause the amount of information of how to trade was chart books for retail and college mainframes for simply math. One of problems now is way too much information, too many indicators, too much false apps. I would not want to be one first starting out now, as most retail apps have very limited uses. Problems with most trading systems for sale is coding lacks ability to adapt to changing conditions, if programmer knew how to adjust, would they even be selling it comes to mind? There are still few areas of trading that lack decent apps, but cause most traders do not venture into them, would seller of apps even bother to spend years even to develop those apps knowing few be sold.
Never said makes everybody rich. I view selling software like any other business like selling coffee or food or entertainment. Does buying a coffee makes you richer? On the contrary and yet you buy it. Will new coffee shops never be opened on street corners just because there are already coffee shops opened on street corners? Let's not compare the new family coffee shop that opened on street corner with the Starbucks franchise.
Gotta clarify one thing. I have a job as software, been doing it for 20 years already and likely will (have to) do it for the rest of my life. So "success" with whatever extra-job work I do doesn't mean I necessarily have to strike it rich, although I wouldn't mind it, but to keep my skills sharp and my employment prospectives real, should I need them. Anyone who does software for a living knows how disfunctional the industry is and it's not getting any better. The competition is fierce and ruthless and you gotta do what you gotta do to stay in the game. Remember, when you apply for a job, you compete against "rested minds" who can focus ADHD-style on whatever irrelevant crap it takes to pass the bar exam. For instance. When you apply for a C++ developer position, you can write your algorithm this way: ========= void compute(int n) { int i = 0; for (int z = 1; ; ++z) for (int x = 1; x <= z; ++x) for (int y = x; y <= z; ++y) if (x*x + y*y == z*z) { printf("%d, %d, %d\n", x, y, z); if (++i == n) return; } } ========= Or you can write it like this: #include <iostream> #include <optional> #include <ranges> // New header! using namespace std; // maybe_view defines a view over zero or one // objects. template<Semiregular T> struct maybe_view : view_interface<maybe_view<T>> { maybe_view() = default; maybe_view(T t) : data_(std::move(t)) { } T const *begin() const noexcept { return data_ ? &*data_ : nullptr; } T const *end() const noexcept { return data_ ? &*data_ + 1 : nullptr; } private: optional<T> data_{}; }; // "for_each" creates a new view by applying a // transformation to each element in an input // range, and flattening the resulting range of // ranges. // (This uses one syntax for constrained lambdas // in C++20.) inline constexpr auto for_each = []<Range R, Iterator I = iterator_t<R>, IndirectUnaryInvocable<I> Fun>(R&& r, Fun fun) requires Range<indirect_result_t<Fun, I>> { return std::forward<R>(r) | view::transform(std::move(fun)) | view::join; }; // "yield_if" takes a bool and a value and // returns a view of zero or one elements. inline constexpr auto yield_if = []<Semiregular T>(bool b, T x) { return b ? maybe_view{std::move(x)} : maybe_view<T>{}; }; int main() { using view::iota; auto triples = for_each(iota(1), [](int z) { return for_each(iota(1, z+1), [=](int x) { return for_each(iota(x, z+1), [=](int y) { return yield_if(x*x + y*y == z*z, make_tuple(x, y, z)); }); }); }); for(auto triple : triples | view::take(10)) { cout << '(' << get<0>(triple) << ',' << get<1>(triple) << ',' << get<2>(triple) << ')' << '\n'; } }
They do the same thing, only first is written in English and the other one in Chinese. I already know English and don't know and don't care about Chinese, but problem is not what I care but what employers ask for. And there are enough "brilliant imbeciles" (ADHD geeks) who will not only embrace and get very very good at Chinese, but actually like it. Of course humans have limited resources so you either pour your wits into ever-learning another crap language and write the same "Anna has some apples" sentence I first learned in school in ever more complicated ways, or - the path I choose to take - is use the goddamn language I already master and be able to forget about the language and concentrate on the prose. My objective is in writing "Game of Thrones" novels is the novel. Wasting time to learn language after language after language in the hope "Game of Thrones" magically writes itself - this is software industry in a nutshell.