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Kimball Morgan <km11@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>As I read the recommendations re: TS Alternatives, I don't see mention of
>the Ensign software.
>
>Any comments from current Ensign users who have taken the time to re-write
>favorite indicators from EasyLanguage to Ensign's language, ESPL?
>
>How about intraday performance?
I spent six weeks trying to use Ensign. For a number of reasons,
I'm committed to using the DTN data feed, and Ensign came well
recommended for use with that feed. The Ensign developer, Howard
Arrington, has a completely different attitude toward support from
that of Omega---he releases frequently (I saw three updates in a
single week, twice a month is more typical, I believe) and incorporates
users' feedback into those releases.
I take exception to some of the architectural choices Howard has
made, the most awkward being the use of "files" for each chart of
each symbol for each time frame. You seem to spend a lot of effort
managing those files, importing things from one or the other of them,
instead of thinking in terms of just charting a data stream, in
whatever time frame or tick-bar format you want. I'm sure it made
sense from the developer's point of view, but as a user, I'd rather
not have to know about Ensign's internal file structure in order to
manage my data.
Another quible is the fact that if you follow futures, Ensign throws
the full DTN feed at your computer, for every futures exchange you're
permissioned with DTN for, and given the bandwidth of the DTN feed,
that's a LOT of data. It's a shame, because DTN has the ability to
sift the feed at the satellite receiver, using what they call
"Watch Lists" of just what you're interested in. Howard has chosen
not to use this DTN feature, and is adamant about his choice, for
reasons he would only explain to me as "it's not that much data."
The show stopper for me, though, was the fact that Ensign can not
import significant amounts of tick data. Anyone who's been on this
list for a while, knows how much attention traders spend caring for
and importing, exchanging, etc., their data. Some feeds even
boast about their refresh capability for this very reason. But
Howard's feeling is that if you need more than about 2038 ticks of
refresh data, you'll just have to wait for them to accumulate from
your feed. If you have an interruption in your feed, too bad.
The 2038 number comes from that file-structure architecture I
mentioned above. To import data of any sort, you must import it to a
"chart" which is really a file, and it turns out that Ensign charts
are limited to 2038 (I'm going from memory on the exact number)
"bars" and if you're importing ticks, each tick is a "bar" so there's
your limit---2038 ticks! Less than half a day's big S+P.
Think of all the complaining we've heard here about Omega's 13K bar
limit on charts. Now imagine your limit was 2K bars...
I wish Howard well, but I don't think I'll be using Ensign.
Jim
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