and Python ??

[Nahed]

Does anybody here use python ?
Nahed

 

[MikeK]

I do...I think its a very under-utilized language. Not only is it pretty powerful but it almost forces you to write neater code.

 

[alain]

I do...I think its a very under-utilized language. Not only is it pretty powerful but it almost forces you to write neater code.

I think this could be a discussion for another day.

 

[Vic_Siqiao]

ive typed several lines of Python to design a stupid website, but still dont know much about it.

 

[Wallstyouth]

Does anybody here use python ?
Nahed

Yeah, I've written lots of python code, its an awesome language true OO and much cleaner than Perl in many ways its very good for prototyping ideas before you use more complex languages such as Java/C++

 

[robertkh]

Has anyone used Python for any specifically quant applications? From what little I know about it, it's an interpreted language, so it would be slower than a compiled language like C++.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Python, Perl and these scripting languages seem to be an invisible minefield. If you are doing too much of it at work, then you probably are way too deep into the IT role. The trick is to know just enough to do things efficiently but not too well that those keywords dominate your resume.
I know of people who deemphasize or hide certain skills so they don't get pigeonholed into IT roles if they want to get into more quantish roles.

We use a bit of perl at work mostly to write some script to download raw data, validate it, schedule tasks and they are pretty powerful.

 

[MikeK]

Has anyone used Python for any specifically quant applications? From what little I know about it, it's an interpreted language, so it would be slower than a compiled language like C++.

I've seen it used for real-time graphing applications (using Reuters data feeds, I believe). Though it was used by a stat-arb desk, it was just a research tool and not a trading tool. Had it been meant for trading, they would've built it in C/C++.

 

[alain]

A group close to mine uses Python as Perl replacement. That's about it.

 

[rwinston]

Does anybody here use python ?
Nahed

Hi Nahed

I've used Python quite a bit. As someone else mentioned on the thread, its a good language for prototyping ideas before you commit to something like C++. In fact, we used to prototype a lot of our pricing algorithms in Python before they ended up as Java or C++ code in our trading systems.

 

[DominiConnor]

There is some Python out there, commonly as rwinston says to prototype things, and used in production when a bit slower doesn't matter much.
But as Andy says, the scripting languages are often used as data pumps, sucking data from one system to another, changing the form as necessary.
Because one is dealing with multiple systems which change relative to each other, and because there's lots of low level business logic, scripting languages like Perl, Python, Ruby and even sed/grep and awk are better choices than C++ or VBA.

This is a large % of the real world work on a trading desk, and I'd expect most people around here finding themselves doing it for some time in their career.

A bit of skill in this is useful, and can make you more attractive to employ.
But Andy has it right, that you can get sucked into being a data monkey.

As a headhunter, I willshare with you that some people get stuck doing this for long enough that it hurts their career. A common path is to do this job well, and since data loading is a critical part of the business, they won't let you do anything else.
Also it is not the sort of work where you get much "glory", but it is very easy for a screwup to make you look bad.
The degenerate case is that they decide you are really doing an IT role and move you into the IT department and bonus pool. For confidentiality reasons I cannot give exact details of the path, but this sort of thing has happened to a good number of people.

 

[doug reich]

I put some info based on this and another thread (all I found by searching) about Python on the quantnet wiki: Python - Quantnet Wiki