I'm still a new user, so take these for what they're worth (incidentally, new users can tell you a lot about usability... 
)
- Hotkeys: I'm forever hitting <CTRL>-S to save my strategy or indicator but nothing happens. This is a windows standard, it should have been there from the beginning. It's very frustrating to have to reach for the mouse and hunt around for buttons to save and compile.
- Workflow: developing NinjaScript has to be one of the most tedious, frustrating exercises I've had in years. I need a half-dozen windows open and am constantly jumping through hoops. The cycle is: code, save, build, backtest. Why does that need a half-dozen windows and a dozen mouse clicks when it should be just four keystrokes: ctrl-s, F5, F6.
I would pay a few hundred dollars extra to be able to smooth out the development process. Right now, OpenQuant has a great code-build-test cycle and when they catch up to NT with some features, I'd be there in a flash.
- In the Strategy Analyzer, I want to backtest a strategy, not a stock. I'm also likely to make many tweaks to the strategy and run, re-run, re-run the same strategy on the same data to get things working just the way I envision it. I want to be able to define a backtest configuration, save it, and run it with a single click.
- I know that each stock has some data associated with it and stored, but how do I see what tha data is? When I run a backtest, it should default to running on the data I have stored locally.
- When I set options for a strategy, it should use those options every time, even after I restart. Better yet, I should be able to set some defaults.
- I would pay extra if there was a "backtest" button right on the strategy window which would run it with my previous configuration. It would make my life a lot easier
- I'm editing an Indicator and a Strategy simultaneously and when I click build on the Strategy, it somehow replaces the contents of that window with the indicator if there is an error compiling the Indicator. Why aren't these separate? It is very confusing and frustrating, especially since they're open in separate windows and so look like they're text editors but something very funky is going on under the covers.
Overall, my experience with NinjaTrader has been that you have some amazing features and great support people in the forums, but the environment and layout feels poorly laid out with little thought to usability. After spending a week trying to develop some strategies and indicators in NT I tried out OpenQuant and it was like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Their workflow was nice, simple, easy to use, approachable, streamlined and intuitive where NT has been nothing but frustrating, awkward, kludgy and intimidating. I'm currently going with NT because you have one feature that OQ lacks (the ability to dynamically add Instruments at runtime) but if that was equal, speaking just for myself as a new user, I would pick OQ even if it were double the price just because it makes the process easy and painless.
)- Hotkeys: I'm forever hitting <CTRL>-S to save my strategy or indicator but nothing happens. This is a windows standard, it should have been there from the beginning. It's very frustrating to have to reach for the mouse and hunt around for buttons to save and compile.
- Workflow: developing NinjaScript has to be one of the most tedious, frustrating exercises I've had in years. I need a half-dozen windows open and am constantly jumping through hoops. The cycle is: code, save, build, backtest. Why does that need a half-dozen windows and a dozen mouse clicks when it should be just four keystrokes: ctrl-s, F5, F6.
I would pay a few hundred dollars extra to be able to smooth out the development process. Right now, OpenQuant has a great code-build-test cycle and when they catch up to NT with some features, I'd be there in a flash.
- In the Strategy Analyzer, I want to backtest a strategy, not a stock. I'm also likely to make many tweaks to the strategy and run, re-run, re-run the same strategy on the same data to get things working just the way I envision it. I want to be able to define a backtest configuration, save it, and run it with a single click.
- I know that each stock has some data associated with it and stored, but how do I see what tha data is? When I run a backtest, it should default to running on the data I have stored locally.
- When I set options for a strategy, it should use those options every time, even after I restart. Better yet, I should be able to set some defaults.
- I would pay extra if there was a "backtest" button right on the strategy window which would run it with my previous configuration. It would make my life a lot easier
- I'm editing an Indicator and a Strategy simultaneously and when I click build on the Strategy, it somehow replaces the contents of that window with the indicator if there is an error compiling the Indicator. Why aren't these separate? It is very confusing and frustrating, especially since they're open in separate windows and so look like they're text editors but something very funky is going on under the covers.
Overall, my experience with NinjaTrader has been that you have some amazing features and great support people in the forums, but the environment and layout feels poorly laid out with little thought to usability. After spending a week trying to develop some strategies and indicators in NT I tried out OpenQuant and it was like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Their workflow was nice, simple, easy to use, approachable, streamlined and intuitive where NT has been nothing but frustrating, awkward, kludgy and intimidating. I'm currently going with NT because you have one feature that OQ lacks (the ability to dynamically add Instruments at runtime) but if that was equal, speaking just for myself as a new user, I would pick OQ even if it were double the price just because it makes the process easy and painless.
Comment