[Tradewinds]

This thread is dedicated to understanding and discussing the basics of Object-Oriented Programming.

Tutorial from Java

What is an object? Oracle.com

You Tube

You Tube

[MadMarketScientist]

Great idea ... I'm a programmer by trade so I will be more than happy to help and answer questions ... bring them on!

MMS

[Tradewinds]

Originally Posted by MadMarketScientist »

Great idea ... I'm a programmer by trade so I will be more than happy to help and answer questions ... bring them on!

MMS

When you first learned OOP basics, can you recall anything that didn't make sense to you? Did you learn it quickly? Are there things that quickly made sense to you? Was there anything about OOP that took a while for you to understand? Did you need to develop a different way of thinking? Is there anything about OOP that you confuse with procedural programing? Is there anything about OOP that you still make a mistake on? These are the kinds of things that I'd be interested in hearing about; from you or anyone else.

[MadMarketScientist]

Originally Posted by Tradewinds »

When you first learned OOP basics, can you recall anything that didn't make sense to you?

This applies to programming in general but understanding and being able to program something using recursion. Once you understand this, OO becomes much easier as you are now able to think about objects\reuse\etc in an abstract way.

Originally Posted by Tradewinds »

Did you learn it quickly? Are there things that quickly made sense to you?

Too me, basic OO is just a way to organize data\code into useful, self-contained things - called objects. So instead of having 10 variables and 50 procedures\functions in a file, instead you have 5 objects each with 2 variables with 10 functions\properties each. So coding and understanding this is easier as you are breaking the problem down into something smaller and more manageable.

Originally Posted by Tradewinds »

Was there anything about OOP that took a while for you to understand? Did you need to develop a different way of thinking?

Now there are advanced features of OO that took some more practice, like Inheritance and Polymorphism. These features are there to help reuse code. Summary:
1. Objects - used to organize code\functionality
2. Inheritence\Polymorphism - ways to reuse code and reduce copy\paste

Originally Posted by Tradewinds »

Is there anything about OOP that you confuse with procedural programing? Is there anything about OOP that you still make a mistake on? These are the kinds of things that I'd be interested in hearing about; from you or anyone else.

I would say a common mistake is for people to 'over-engineer' their object hierarchies and incorrectly implement Inheritance and Polymorphism. I've seen OO programs much more damn confusing than a procedural programs. It all depends on using the tools correctly. OO gives plenty of rope for people to hang themselves with.

But given the complexity of software today, some applications would be nearly impossible without OO.

thx
MMS

[Tams]

When OO came on the popular computing scene ~25 yr ago (largely due to the availability of personal computer to the general public), it was all hype and hoopla, it was the best thing invented since sliced bread. It was the "future" of programming.

25 years later, I am surprised to see TS taking it on as a trading language.

My personal take (only personal 2 cents' worth) -- it is a waste of otherwise useful and productive time for the non-programmers (especially traders) trying to learn and implement any serious and extensive OO programming project.

OO programming is a craft, not a skill.
It requires dedication and discipline to learn.
It requires total immersion to learn it well. (object thinking is a paradigm shift)
It requires practice practice and practice
(ie. getting paid to do it professionally on the boss' dime).

If you have not touched a piece of EasyLanguage code for 3 months,
you can pick it up and understand the operation immediately.

If you have not touched a piece of OO code for 3 months,
it might take you a day(s) to understand the heads and tails of things
(unless it is a very short code).

OO is great for big and complicated projects. (eg. a comprehensive autotrade)
EasyLanguage is good for small to medium sized indicators and simple autotrades.

For the full time trader and amateur programmer,
my advice is to stick to EasyLanguage and spend your precious time trading and making money, and if you have extra time, go and have fun doing things with the money you earned.

Again, don't mean to discourage anybody taking it on... this is only my 2 cents' worth of gut feelings. YMMV.

[Tradewinds]

Originally Posted by MadMarketScientist »

Too me, basic OO is just a way to organize data\code into useful, self-contained things - called objects. So instead of having 10 variables and 50 procedures\functions in a file, instead you have 5 objects each with 2 variables with 10 functions\properties each. So coding and understanding this is easier as you are breaking the problem down into something smaller and more manageable.
thx
MMS

This sound interesting, and thank you for the feedback. What I'd be interested in seeing is two sets of very simple code, one procedural, one OO. For example, the price breaks the last high. Don't show all the code for how to determine the last high, just assume that we already have that. What would be the object? How would you program the condition of the current close going over the last high? I don't know if you could do it in pseudo code?

var: LastHigh(0), NewHigh(False);

NewHigh = Close > LastHigh;  // NewHigh is assigned a value of 'True' when condition met

How would OO code be different?

[MadMarketScientist]

Originally Posted by Tradewinds »

What would be the object? How would you program the condition of the current close going over the last high? I don't know if you could do it in pseudo code?

var: LastHigh(0), NewHigh(False);

NewHigh = Close > LastHigh;  // NewHigh is assigned a value of 'True' when condition met

How would OO code be different?

I could see a vendor building the code this way - where the instrument (stock, etc) is the object and things like volume, price, etc. are its properties. e.g.

class Stock()
{
  // variables to hold data
  int LastHigh;
  int Close;
  int Price;
  int Volume:

  // properties to return calculated data values
  bool NewHigh {
    return Close > LastHigh;
  }
}

Then someone would use this object like so:

Stock s = new Stock("AAPL");
if (s.NewHigh == true) BUY!!

So it all depends on the framework provided by the vendor. I know NinjaTrader is built with C# so if you program against it, essentially you are using OO. But like Tams said earlier, if the main goal is Trading, it doesn't matter whether it is OO or not, the tool doesn't matter. You just want it to work.

thx
MMS

[Tradewinds]

Originally Posted by Tams »

25 years later, I am surprised to see TS taking it on as a trading language.

My personal take (only personal 2 cents' worth) -- it is a waste of otherwise useful and productive time for the non-programmers (especially traders) trying to learn and implement any serious and extensive OO programming project.

I wouldn't care about OO, but I have this code that was created as an example by tradestation, and it's the only code that I know of that will do what I want. I don't know of any other options. It has to do with running the code, and therefore a clock, independent from having the code calculate dependent upon data ticks.

Plus I'm not sure if there is functionality, options available in OO in EasyLanguage not available otherwise. So, in a sense, I feel that I'm being forced to learn two programing languages, and I may need to use both of them in the same indicator.