waw,

I was reading the below post about AmiBroker:

Backtesting and Research: MultiCharts or AmiBroker SO I am looking for a faster, more reliable backtesting platform. I currently use NinjaTrader, but find the results often dubious at best, particularly with muti-timeframe and multi-instrument. I am actually happy with NT for live trading (like the …

... probably too much passion in that discussion

My (yet, limited) experience with AmiBroker so far:

- it is the only alternative (I know of) for a starter that wants to learn with a minimum initial investment and:
1) use free intra-day data. AB provides low to 1 minute free charts (via google finance. Yahoo finance is totally unreliable from what I've seen.)
2) Play with backtesting, optimization and other nice functions that usually cost thousands in other software alternatives.
3) They have good support. They replied to all my emails with a constructive attitude.
4) I must admit, there are little glitches here and there in the software, things that may not even be caused by AmiBroker itself, but a combination of factors like where you install the software (folder Program Files vs Program Files x86, or what antivirus you are using). Overall, with some computer knowledge, you'll hit the road running.
5) I still see the overall integration & usability of the software as the main improvement area. I feel like it was done by a programmer for his fellow friends. And there is still plenty of room for improvements in this area Price alone heavily overweight this aspect though.

As I am on a learning curve about trading in general and I don't want to spend tens of thousands on trading software, I much appreciate the value AB offers for its cost. I'm yet to be shown a similar alternative.

I wish I could give feedback about MultiCharts, but MultiCharts is just 25 times more expensive. And I am still a fan of one off charge, full capabilities, don't like to "monthly rent" software while keeping a day job.

"It shows the simulator in action in animation mode. Yes, I added a free running animation mode.

I used a screen recording software program and just recorded it at 10 FPS, since my AB simulation was running at 10 steps per second. It is simulating a Hydro-Pneumatic system. The diagram is a cutaway of a cylindrical mechanism. You dial in the dimensional configuration and it draws it and simulates the work transfer efficiency. The one shown is the simplest configuration.

All the elements were drawn with low level graphics commands. The AFL listing is about 1000 lines, most of it concerned with the UI.

Enjoy the movie, and I hope it inspires you to more possibilities for using AB for doing more than just stock market tasks."

I am working on a project right now that uses AB as a general purpose (non-stock) language to animate the drawing of a mechanical device and graph its performance. It shows the mechanical positions of a hydro-pneumatic cylinder with different configurations that are parameterized with the sliders in the properties window.

I looked all over the web for a simple language that could do this. The key is that 80% of code is usually doing just user interface code. I finally decided that AFL would be the easiest thing for me to write this in. It is not the first time I have used AFL to write a program that has nothing to do with charting stocks.

I did my whole program with just parameter functions, low level Gfx functions and no array arithmetic.

Based on what I found from searching the web, I could see a spinoff of AFL with a few more general language functions (like dimensioned arrays not tied to stocks and a few UI tweaks), to be a useful general interpreter language for easy to write programs to solve custom problems quickly, while still having good execution performance

As much as I dislike MultiCharts actions, at least they never created fake accounts pretending to be users and promote their products.

Mike