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It doesn't make me wonder.
Managing a software operation if you do not know programming as well as the
people doing it for you can be a nightmare.
I do not intend any pious sympathy for Omega or anyone else when I say this,
just a matter of observation.
A project of this size and complexity, designed and managed by people who
come and go, with the famous reluctance/inability of programmers to document
their work, write readable, modular code, and given lack of routine,
rigorous code testing, has notoriously caused huge projects to fail and been
the subject of studies by many, including IBM (resulting in their Chief
Programmer organizational model) and of many books as well. Mastery of such
organization has distinguished Ross Perot and Bill Gates, among a few
others - and look at the troubles they have!
Not a job for amateurs, however glowing their concept - and Omega's idea was
very forward-looking: the first step toward developing a widely-based
trading methodology based upon objective analysis - for such people as have
the bent for this. No wonder it took off so meteorically - and has
irreversibly changed the trading scene. But support - which even Microsoft
cannot provide except as a separate and unsatisfactory enterprise - is
unavoidably unaffordable with poorly designed, understood, written and
tested code, no matter how noble the intentions. It takes someone of the
genius of Nikolaus Wirth and his graduate students at the ETH in Zurich to
design a full-blown, transparent and extensible language like Pascal or
Modula.
So, we cope as best we can; the program is part of the problem and we trade
off learning its endless quirks and ambiguities as a price for being able to
design a way to trade in which our imagination is the limit, not our
physical ability to fetch, process, evaluate and employ data in real time,
far beyond unaided human capability, and lets us all dream that we can beat
the system - or at least stay ahead of it.
And this is where matters will remain until someone else comes along who can
do the job - and make it pay for them and us.
Jim
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Fulks [mailto:bfulks@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, 16 December, 2001 11:20
To: Mike Higgs
Cc: omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: variable declarations within EL?
At 11:43 AM -0500 12/16/01, Mike Higgs wrote:
>Of all the things, I've seen posted here and elsewhere about system
development this is one of the most insightful. We assume that software
>gives us the "right" answer if the data being used is clean. And then we
are willing to put dollars on the line.
Interesting footnotes in TRAD's most recent 10Q report:
"Other receivables are from the brokerage's clearing organization and, as of
September 30, 2001, a $2.7 million receivable from the Company's insurance
carrier relating to a trading error made with respect to a client's account.
While no assurances can be given, we expect the insurance claim to be fully
paid by the carrier."
And:
"Technology development expenses were $2.9 million for the three months
ended September 30, 2001, as compared to $1.8 million for the three months
ended September 30, 2000, an increase of $1.2 million, or 66%, due primarily
to increased uninsured loss reserves of $600,000 and increased personnel and
related expenses of $330,000."
Sort of makes you wonder why they need "uninsured loss reserves" as part of
their technology development expenses...
Maybe some of the bugs in TradeStation are finally "coming home to roost..."
Bob Fulks
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