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Ensign32's ESPL is a Pascal-derived development language which is compiled
and executes extremely quickly. ESPL itself is written in Delphi and
includes most features found and expected in modern languages, even some
decent debugging facilities. Since most languages currently in use including
Easy Language, Visual Basic, and Delphi have roots in Pascal, it should not
take long for an experienced programmer to begin developing useful code.
What ESPL lacks, more than anything else, are the higher level,
trading-specific, language constructs found in Easy Language which make
developing trading systems somewhat faster in EL than ESPL. However, ESPL is
especially well-suited for those who want virtually total control over
everything or wish to tackle more complex projects which can not be
effectively accomplished or completed in EL e.g. databases, custom drawing
tools, dynamic alerts and dialogs, etc. ESPL is probably the only currently
available alternative to EL for those needing powerful development
facilities. The ESPL editor has supported multiple include files for some
months now and this has made it easier to segment code so it does not all
have to be placed in a single huge code file. The documentation tends to be
terse at time and could be improved and a bigger examples file with more
practical trading examples would not hurt. All-in-all, I prefer working in
Visual Basic (which also lacks trading-specific language constructs),
however I have yet to tackle a project in ESPL which I could not complete to
my complete satisfaction. While I found my share of bugs in ESPL, each and
every one was tracked down and fixed promptly by the developer. Conversely,
my disk drive is littered with EL projects which I was forced to abandon due
to various EL limitations and quality issues.
It is my understanding that BMI/Ensign offers a nightly data refresh for
around $30 - not available with DTN. While Ensign works with Signal On-Line
and can even grab up to 3 days of historical tick data, I have not been
satisfied with the usability of this combination and have a strong dislike
for SOL.
Earl
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Brown <markbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Peter2150@xxxxxxx <Peter2150@xxxxxxx>; omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx
<omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, April 26, 1999 10:10 AM
Subject: Re: Best alternative to TradeStation 2000i?
>capabilities of the proprietary code is very obscure and drove me nuts, I
>hate having to rely on the owner of the software for even the simplest
piece
>of code. The only excellent documentation on the code is in the mind of
the
>creator, and I hate having that dependency. Also to my surprise if you
>create a chart that has many studies on it, you must modify the entire code
>to change something. The system, indicators, ect are all jumbled up into
>one very large piece of code, very confusing and "NOT" user friendly at
all.
>Not to take away from an otherwise great program and the owner who is a
>great guy in my opinion. His program is just to propriety for my taste and
>the data problems are a big concern.
>
>MB
>
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