|
PureBytes Links
Trading Reference Links
|
Earl Adamy wrote:
> (Hans and/or Bob) I waded through a mass of info and
> module pages and came away a bit puzzled. Is this intended
> as TS/SC complement or as replacement?
TradeLab can be used in conjunction with TradeStation or SuperCharts. It
also can be used as a free-standing system.
> I couldn't quite figure out why it would be designed with
> the breadth of features and still require the Omega quote
> server?
TradeLab is designed so it can obtain both historic and real-time trading
data from an Omega Server or Omega Server Gateway program, because so many
traders already have one of those servers with a large historic database,
and because our own server is not yet ready for release.
TradeLab is designed in such a way that it could be easily interfaced to
almost any server, or even to more than one server. A single server can
serve data to any number of TradeLab workstations on different local area
network computers. It also is possible to have multiple servers with one or
more TradeLab workstations, where different servers collect data from
different data feeds for different markets, or where a second server runs in
hot-standby mode collecting duplicate data from a backup datafeed in case of
primary datafeed or server failure.
Our design overcomes the problem of different data providers using different
symbols for the same markets. Incoming symbols from various data sources
are mapped to user specified symbols for internal storage. If a user has a
Signal data feed, the symbol for the June 98 S&P 500 CME futures contract
will be received as SP M8. Other datafeeds send different symbols. However
, that causes no problems in our server, because users specify the symbols
they want to use in their own databases. Incoming data from various data
sources (real-time and end of day) are automatically mapped to those symbols
, so no matter what symbols different data vendors may use, incoming data
gets saved under user-specified symbolic indentifiers.
The server has the capability to copy all the data from an Omega Server or
Omega Server Gateway program to its own Y2K compliant database. The
original symbolic indentifiers can be maintained when that is done, or Omega
Server or Omega Server Gateway symbols can be mapped to any other symbols a
user may prefer. User-specified identifiers can be changed at any time.
If two TradeLab users with our server exchange data, it doesn't matter what
symbols they each use. The servers work a little "magic" that automatically
sorts everything out correctly when data is pasted from one to another.
There also is no problem exchanging data between time zones, because
database records are time-stamped with seconds past midnight Greenwich Mean
Time, no matter where users are located. GMT is translated to local hours,
minutes and seconds (or any other time zone a user may prefer to use) on
charts and everywhere else time is displayed.
We will freely provide interface information to other developers who may
want to develop servers for specialized markets or datafeeds, or even any
who may want to develop a server that will be competitive with ours.
> If I understand, the trading development language is the
> OLE capable programing language of your choice?
TradeLab user functions, indicators and trading system programs do not have
to be written in a language that supports OLE. That is only an option.
They can be written in any language that can be used to write programs that
will run under Windows. TradeLab even can execute and get data back from
routines in Excel spreadsheets on a real-time basis. The interfacing is
less efficient, but user programs even can run under DOS. If run on
different computers, TradeLab even can accomplish two-way, real-time
interfaces with user programs running under UNIX or most any other operating
system. Most users will use Visual Basic, because it is very similar to,
but much more capable than, Easy Language. It also is much better
documented.
> How is TradeLab different than a TA toolkit DLL such as
> offered by FMLabs?
I am not familiar with FMLabs' toolkit DLL. However, TradeLab is much more
than a DLL. It is a modular, object-oriented design C++ program that makes
extensive use of inheritance and polymorphism in a large hierarchy of
classes derived from a few base classes. There are hundreds of thousands of
lines of code and more being written every day. TradeLab can be a simple,
low-cost end of day charting program or a sophisticated market analysis and
real-time trading platform, depending on the modules used. It can be a
single workstation for a single user or a large network of workstations for
many users.
There is a TradeLab mailing list where questions are being answered and
technical issues are being discussed. There is a link from the TradeLab
home page at http://sciapp.com where anyone interested can join. However,
we averaged about 4,000 web site hits per day this past week. It isn't easy
to keep up with all the questions most people have, so there may be some lag
before your questions come up in the queue.
I want to emphasize that only three modules have been released. Several
others are ready for release as soon as help is written. Other modules are
in early stages of development. Our web site has tables showing the extent
of completion of various parts of the project.
-Bob Brickey
Scientific Approaches
sci@xxxxxxxxxx
|