The Great Debate - JAVA vs. C++

[msp115]

Hi all,

Just wanted let everyone know that we are hosting a marketing event to shed some light on which language is best for coding high-frequncy, low-latency trading applications.

It will be in the form of a debate, with a moderator and one side a JAVA team and one side a C++ team. Debugging, speed, maintenance, etc., etc. -all will be a part of the debate.

At the conclusion, everyone in attendance will be able to txt their vote for the winner. During the cocktail hour, we'll announce the "winner".

If you'd like to attend, it's FREE and will be in Chicago on Sept. 18th at the W. Traders and developers alike are invited. We're also looking for people to populate either side of the panel. If you're staunch in your advocacy of either language, let us know and we can chat. Send all requests or inquiries to [email protected]

Mike

 

[arabianights]

Damn was hoping this was a serious thread rather than spam.

You got my nerd juices going you ****!

 

[msp115]

not spam

I'm not selling anything. The event doesn't cost anything. However, if you thought the debate was going to be held in this thread, my apologies. Nonetheless, you're totally welcome to attend on 9/18 or even sit on a panel - we'd love to have you there!

It's only an announcement about an event, not trying to get you to buy anything.

Mike

Damn was hoping this was a serious thread rather than spam.

You got my nerd juices going you ****!

 

[rnicoll]

Haskell or Erlang.

However, no-one supports either, so whatever your broker's API goes with, IMHO

 

[msp115]

Because of the freeform nature of the debate I'm not sure abstracts would really be in order. We will, however, put up a podcast for all to view shortly after the conclusion.

 

[arabianights]

msp,

Sorry for my cynicism a bit earlier...

Dave

 

[msp115]

No worries, Dave. Let me know if there's any other questions I can answer.

 

[dcraig1]

I'm sorry but I find this sort of thing to be mostly a waste of time. If there is a specific problem to solve with some sort of spec including performance requirements, then it gets a bit interesting. Otherwise it's just a lot of hand waving, when clearly there is a good case for both Java or C++ in different circumstances.

I find it hard to believe that anybody posting on T2W has an edge that exploits the potential performance advantage than C++ might sometimes have. Such an edge in any case is liable to be quickly eroded by better capitalised and quite probably smarter competition. It's just not realistic to get into a latency "arms race" and win for small traders.

 

[rnicoll]

I'm sorry but I find this sort of thing to be mostly a waste of time. If there is a specific problem to solve with some sort of spec including performance requirements, then it gets a bit interesting. Otherwise it's just a lot of hand waving, when clearly there is a good case for both Java or C++ in different circumstances.

I find it hard to believe that anybody posting on T2W has an edge that exploits the potential performance advantage than C++ might sometimes have. Such an edge in any case is liable to be quickly eroded by better capitalised and quite probably smarter competition. It's just not realistic to get into a latency "arms race" and win for small traders.

I'd agree. On a modern system, worrying about C++/Java means worrying about nanoseconds under normal circumstances. If you want fast, you can start by moving your trading system closer to the exchange, trimming whole milliseconds off round trip time. We can then talk about multi-threading and other bits of code design, which will probably knock another order of magnitude off your runtime.

Personally, I'd suggest going with a language that suits the task well. C++ works well if you know it already and want to stick to what you know. Java works well, generally. C# looks extremely promising but I've never tried anything on the scale of a trading platform in it. Haskell (programming language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) is what you really want, IMHO, as it's a fantastic language for doing formula-like maths in, but it gets written off as being too strange by a lot of people.

 

[arabianights]

Looks very similar syntax to ML. That still gives me nightmares.

Functional languages: why?

 

[darky2600]

Not sure about Haskell, as this is first time I heard of it. It seems pretty nice so I'm going to check it out.

I mostly use C++ and have worked in Delphi.

 

[rnicoll]

Looks very similar syntax to ML. That still gives me nightmares.

Functional languages: why?

Because if you can get your head around them, you can save a lot of time and coding?

 

[rnicoll]

Not sure about Haskell, as this is first time I heard of it. It seems pretty nice so I'm going to check it out.

I mostly use C++ and have worked in Delphi.

I should probably admit that I've used Java, myself, because IB supply a Java API and so it was simplest. I'd love to say I'll write a Haskell version, but I'm weeks over my spare time for his at the moment.

 

[hengchon]

Prefer if somebody could upload the transcript of the debate. I'm eager to read for extra knowledge!

 

[AnEdge]

Java versus C++, are you kidding me...a real tech would write his compiler after soldering together his own hardware. Honestly, except for ultra low latency traders at a large hedge fund/bulge bracket bank there is no difference. In reality you will use what you are comfortable with or is required for your APIs.

 

[rnicoll]

Java versus C++, are you kidding me...a real tech would write his compiler after soldering together his own hardware. Honestly, except for ultra low latency traders at a large hedge fund/bulge bracket bank there is no difference. In reality you will use what you are comfortable with or is required for your APIs.

Agreed. For most people the difference between the two is going to be trivial in comparison to efficiency differences based on how well they can code (for example, bubble vs quick sort).