We are a group of European traders all using eSignal now for more than a year as a platform for developing trading strategies and integrated trading systems. We are pleased by the overall system design and its many features. However there are some issues which require more attention in order to avoid loss of time and money by its users and in order to make this good product an excellent one.
I alone spend 1000+ hrs over the last year designing, coding and testing. In spite of my programming background it was quite a steep learning curve which I experienced.
I think everybody who has attempted to develop a fairly complex system with EFS had the same impression and also the feeling that something should be done about it.
My estimate is that roughly 50% of my time could have been saved had there been available a more complete and up to date documentation of the EFS. This forum is helpful but it is no substitute.
Having a fairly exhaustive documentation of EFS and giving examples of what can be done with it would be a good start. (The existing online documentation is of fairly poor quality: it is incomplete, often lacks useful examples and contains too many errors.)
What is also needed is information about what (presently) cannot be done or shouldn´t be attempted due to system limitations and / or performance problems.
Finally it is obvious that a system like eSignal cannot be free of bugs. The problem is not that there are bugs but how they are addressed. It is not a shame to talk about them openly - it is just the opposite!
It is true that this forum is a good place to find SOME information about various problems one might encounter in designing and implementing systems. But this is spread out over hundreds of threads and the information found is incomplete, redundant and often not up to date. Therefore my guess is that many users spend way too much time looking for information about how to deal with problems they ran into; often without luck. Even if they eventually find a helpful hint – mostly by other users - it is a very inefficient way of dealing with problems which often could have been avoided with some more knowledge upfront.
What we think is needed is ONE list of known bugs, problems and possible workarounds which is beeing updated permanently. This includes status information about the effort to solve those problems.
Don´t get us wrong. We like eSignal. But we think there is a huge potential for improvement; not by increasing the speed of adding new features but by making the existing system more stable and better usable through improved quality management and documentation.
Comments and reactions highly appreciated.
I alone spend 1000+ hrs over the last year designing, coding and testing. In spite of my programming background it was quite a steep learning curve which I experienced.
I think everybody who has attempted to develop a fairly complex system with EFS had the same impression and also the feeling that something should be done about it.
My estimate is that roughly 50% of my time could have been saved had there been available a more complete and up to date documentation of the EFS. This forum is helpful but it is no substitute.
Having a fairly exhaustive documentation of EFS and giving examples of what can be done with it would be a good start. (The existing online documentation is of fairly poor quality: it is incomplete, often lacks useful examples and contains too many errors.)
What is also needed is information about what (presently) cannot be done or shouldn´t be attempted due to system limitations and / or performance problems.
Finally it is obvious that a system like eSignal cannot be free of bugs. The problem is not that there are bugs but how they are addressed. It is not a shame to talk about them openly - it is just the opposite!
It is true that this forum is a good place to find SOME information about various problems one might encounter in designing and implementing systems. But this is spread out over hundreds of threads and the information found is incomplete, redundant and often not up to date. Therefore my guess is that many users spend way too much time looking for information about how to deal with problems they ran into; often without luck. Even if they eventually find a helpful hint – mostly by other users - it is a very inefficient way of dealing with problems which often could have been avoided with some more knowledge upfront.
What we think is needed is ONE list of known bugs, problems and possible workarounds which is beeing updated permanently. This includes status information about the effort to solve those problems.
Don´t get us wrong. We like eSignal. But we think there is a huge potential for improvement; not by increasing the speed of adding new features but by making the existing system more stable and better usable through improved quality management and documentation.
Comments and reactions highly appreciated.
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