Walter's DConf 2014 Talks - Topics in Finance

[Daniel Davidson]

On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 12:35:50 UTC, Saurabh Das wrote:
> You are absolutely correct - the finance industry _wants_ to
> switch away fromC++. I work in a fledgeling HFT startup firm and
> we are actively pursuing D. We have tested it out in a live
> trading environment and the results are very promising.
>

Well, the finance industry is pretty big and therefore diverse. 
By, "the finance industry _wants_ to switch away from C++" I 
assume you mean on average or maybe those you work with. Glad to 
hear you are having promising results with D.

> 1. We are measuring better latency numbers in D (As compared to
> the older C++ systems). This is good enough reason to switch :)
>

You should share some of the numbers and analysis - maybe some 
techniques as well. Where do you suspect that edge comes from and 
would it be possible to duplicate the improvements by 
changing/improving the C++ - (not that you would want to)?

> 2. After much testing, we concluded that fear-of-GC-collects is
> overblown. Avoid allocating in the main loops as far as 
> possible.
>

Really? Why is that... because it has no noticeable effect in 
your system?

> 3. Code is _much_ more maintainable and easier to understand.
>

I would bet so.

> 4. It's fun to code again - and this point cannot be stressed
> enough. C++ is a major headache but earlier we had no choice.
>

Fun is important - especially at an HFT startup. Just imagine the 
pain endured by new hires at firms with mounds of C++.

> I'm quite confident that D is going to make good inroads into 
> the
> financial industry in the coming years.

My bet is it will make inroads in finance but more on the 
infrastructure, web, general programming side and less on the 
HFT, low-latency side. Probably less on the Quant side as well 
without something compelling. Julia is compelling with its focus 
on math and clear benefits over current RAD alternatives numpy, 
R, Matlab, etc. I don't yet see where D adds distinction to that 
game yet - other than being a great language.  We'll see.

Thanks
Dan