Those people who use AFL are either naive or a non porgrammer. If you are a professional quant/algo trader then they would prefer python instead of AFL.
- Its free
- Its open source
- Community of developers
- its DAMN fast
Comparing to python; AFL is nothing especially for algo trading. Most of the quant/algo traders uses python.
That said I have tried a long time ago PyAlgoTrade but I find it very complex and lack of tutorials make it much more difficult. It would be helpful if you can continue with some small sample codes.
A REQUEST: I hate classes in python can you rewrite the codes with only functions.
Dear mastermind007,
I myself am not a big fan of amibroker because its expensive( more than 25000 rs) and their are very good alternative available. I personally believe that with this steep price amibroker is looting a ordinary trader. I myself has a small capital and considers 25k as a very good amount.
Ami is built for trading and its made for non programmers in mind wheres as python is a general purpose programming language. For algo trading python is a better solution than ami because ami is slow ( its a vectorised programming languge). Amibroker also lacks many strong libraries for example machine learning.
One thing I have to agree with you is the chance of creating a buggy code (because of the programmers fault) is more likely in python than in ami. But as a free program with more control over your code and availability of numerous libraries I would definitely recommend python.
Please dont consider this as a rude or rash comment because I just want to inform other new traders who are interested in algo trading that their are other good,free alternative programs available for algotrading than ami.
If you want to find out more about using python in trading watch youtube videos especially sentdex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BrpKpWwT2A and also have a look at quantopian.
mutualguru
OMG!! Your ability to argue is unbelievable!!! Between two posts, you've swung from one extreme to another and just come across as a person who wants to promote/recommend python by hook or by crook even though you seem to incompetent (by your own admission) to evaluate either one of them.
Your concern and desire to "inform other new traders" comes across like a politician championing cause of poor people during election days.
In first post, you criticised amibroker as inferior relying on fact that professional quant traders use python. Professional quants are expected to mange big funds and do spend good money on infrastructure and software. In next post, you self-identify as small trader and complain that cost of software is prohibitive.
All programming languages require some skill. Neither software is built with non-programmer in mind. It is just a marketting statement to assuage the fears. Non-programmer cannot program any language and if he learns at least one language, he is no longer a non-programmer.
Just FYI, python and amibroker support vector arithmetic. Python is a general purpose scripting language for too wide scope whereas Ami is designed for trading as serious activity.
No language can be learnt by criticising some other language. If you relish your "non-programmer" tag (for whatever reason), then at least hire someone competent who can do the work rather than blow off your trading capital.
Software programming is the only field in which every Tom, Dick and Mahadick decide to dabble and master the art (in days) which a computer engineer has spent few years to learn. Naturally, when T/D/M fails, it is fault of the platform. Aptech, NIIT and neighbourhood coaching classes actually create a very wrong impression about programming.
Amibroker does not use classes but python does. No one is going to rewrite the code to weed out classes just because you happen to hate it.
I am a computer programmer with 20 years of experience of day-to-day programming. I have worked on at least a dozen languages and handful of scrpting languages too. I've done this kind of work for my entire professional life so neither of languages faze me and it does not take lot of time for me to pick either one. In last 5 years for Algo trading, I've written fair amount of code in Ninjatrader, R and Amibroker (100+ systems overall) and also dabbled in Metastock and FCharts. I had written some text processing application in python but its been a while. I have also written one AFL that implements machine learning.
So, please stop bluffing around. .
P.S. Since you carry name of mutualguru, I only hope you are not some mutual fund investment manager with history of tanked asset funds because he tried to save 25000 and programming cost and lost few crores of other people's money.