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Orphelin@xxxxxxx wrote:
> I'm probably a genius (and I was not aware of this before you post).
> I always succeeded to find out the answer from the manual and / or with a
> little verification when things were seeming unclear.
You probably *are* a genius, Pierre. You also have an advantage of
being a long term TS user, having the complexities of newer versions and
builds introduced to you a little at a time.
It is not so much a case of the manual being incorrect as it is
deficient. I'm sure that errors exist somewhere as well, but that's not
my point here. I recently wrote OmegaResearch addressing these very
issues, as I'm not happy.
One small example (there are others that I know about and probably a lot
that I don't - yet) of where the manual is deficient is in it's
description of the MaxBarsBack setting. The manual gives a description
of this similar to what you would find in a dictionary. It is not
incorrect, but doesn't even come close to describing the this feature,
nor does it place the correct amount of emphasis on how important this
is.
Here are just some of the things that it *doesn't* tell you. I suspect
that it is not an all inclusive list. It doesn't mention that where
there are two or more data series, the MBB setting has to be set so that
all calculations begin on the same bar for both (or more) data series.
This means extra data in Data2, Data3 etc. as well. It doesn't say that
if you have an XAverage of an XAverage that the MBB should be the sum of
the lengths. It doesn't say that if you set MBB to be too large, that
the results can be different than if it is set exactly correct. It
doesn't point out that you *won't* get an error message that 'MBB is
incorrectly set', you will just get incorrect results, something for you
to discover in your spare time.
As a testament to how unclear and incomplete this section is in the
manual, everytime I've requested help from the EL support, the first
line of their response is instructions to check the MBB setting.
My main complaint with the manual is that it is part of an incomplete
package of instruction on the use of this complex product. The manual
is not designed to quickly enable a new user, who has no programming
experience, to become an intermediate level EL programmer. There is no
tutorial as is common with almost all software of even moderate
complexity (instead, there is Expert Commentary - what a joke!). There
are free seminars, but if you don't live in or close to a major city in
the continental US, you are out of luck. There's nothing on their
website, except where you can find (some, not all)third party
assistance. These can be useful, as can be the EL support, but you have
to know what questions to ask!
My opinion, FWIW, is that providing any or all of these things would be
in conflict with the marketing claims that you can describe your system
as you would to another trader. I don't know about typical sentence
structure in French (okay, a little), but I've never known anyone to
talk like they were reading code! OmegaResearch has dropped the ball on
this one, and the poorly designed manual is certainly part of the
general omissions that they are guilty of. The MBB example is just one
small part of an incomplete whole.
~Alan
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