When should we expect Dolphin 6.0 ?
|
> When should we expect Dolphin 6.0 ?
I should expect I will be the only reply to this message ;) Soon. Soon. |
Sean Malloy wrote:
>>When should we expect Dolphin 6.0 ? > > > I should expect I will be the only reply to this message ;) > > Soon. Soon. Well, what does soon mean? I was planning on switching from VAST to Dolphin for development but if soon "means a year", it's not soon enough for me... And I don't want to buy version 5.x if they'll release 6.0 a few months after... |
> Well, what does soon mean? I was planning on switching from VAST to
> Dolphin for development but if soon "means a year", it's not soon enough > for me... And I don't want to buy version 5.x if they'll release 6.0 a > few months after... No idea. There was talk of "Soon" over a year ago. Anyways, I had the same objection to buying dolphin XP when I knew 6 was going to be out, Andy from Object Arts assured me that to upgrade to Dolphin 6 professional, I would only have to pay the difference (If there is one) I haven't heard anything to challenge that, so I assume it still stands. |
In reply to this post by Anonymous-2
Anonymous,
> Well, what does soon mean? I was planning on switching from VAST to > Dolphin for development but if soon "means a year", it's not soon > enough for me... And I don't want to buy version 5.x if they'll > release 6.0 a few months after... I've included a post from Andy Bower on the 16th Feb that should allay any cost fears about buying D5 (and may help answer the when question) .... =_=_=_=_=_= Folks, We are receiving a fair number of e-mail enquiries regarding the upgrade policy for Dolphin 6 when it becomes available. While we have not currently set the pricing for the new product (old hands will know that we rarely do this until just before release when we scribble a few numbers on the back of an envelope) it is likely that the release will be sometime after the end of May this year. In the meantime we have decided that all Dolphin 5 users who have purchased the full product or upgrade after the start of 2004 will be afforded the opportunity to upgrade to D6 at only the difference in price. Hence if you purchase D5 Pro now at $349.95 and the equivalent D6 product is $399.95 (remember, the new prices have not yet been set) then you will only need to pay the $50 difference. Hopefully this will address the concerns of those people who are considering purchasing Dolphin right now but are wondering whether it might be better to wait for the release of D6 before doing so. Best regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support www.object-arts.com =_=_=_=_=_= -- Ian Use the Reply-To address to contact me. Mail sent to the From address is ignored. |
In reply to this post by Anonymous-2
"Anonymous" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]... > Sean Malloy wrote: > >>When should we expect Dolphin 6.0 ? > > I should expect I will be the only reply to this message ;) > > Soon. Soon. > > Well, what does soon mean? I was planning on switching from VAST to > Dolphin for development but if soon "means a year", it's not soon enough > for me... And I don't want to buy version 5.x if they'll release 6.0 a > few months after... I am guessing that we might see Dolphin 6 within the next few months. I suspect that most of us Dolphin 5 users are eager to get Dolphin 6 not because of any serious flaws in Dolphin 5, but mostly because we want a new toy to play with. ;) Dolphin version 5 is a great system. I switched from VAST 4.x to Dolphin 3.x years ago, and I am glad I did. Dolphin works better for my needs (Windows PC based software) than IBM VAST did, and is much more economical. I just would not want people to assume that there is anything wrong with version 5 based on our eagerness for version 6. I am looking forward to Dolphin 6, but I am still enjoying version 5. ;) Chris |
Folks,
> > Well, what does soon mean? I was planning on switching from VAST to > > Dolphin for development but if soon "means a year", it's not soon > > enough for me... And I don't want to buy version 5.x if they'll > > release 6.0 a few months after... > > I am guessing that we might see Dolphin 6 within the next few months. > I suspect that most of us Dolphin 5 users are eager to get Dolphin 6 > not because of any serious flaws in Dolphin 5, but mostly because we > want a new toy to play with. ;) Dolphin version 5 is a great system. > I switched from VAST 4.x to Dolphin 3.x years ago, and I am glad I > did. Dolphin works better for my needs (Windows PC based software) > than IBM VAST did, and is much more economical. > > I just would not want people to assume that there is anything wrong > with version 5 based on our eagerness for version 6. I am looking > forward to Dolphin 6, but I am still enjoying version 5. ;) Well, in a unprecedented display of openness ;-) let me try and explain the current position regarding Dolphin 6. As you may have guessed (by virtue of the fact that D6 is not already out there) we are running late with the development. There are, in the main, two reasons for this: 1) Whilst the feature set for D6 is steadily growing, there are a number of features that we had hoped to include that are not there yet. We feel that it is worth delaying the release a short while to include at least some of these. I don't want to print the shortlist here, however, just in case your particular favourite doesn't make "the cut". 2) More importantly from the delay perspective, over the last two months we have been engaged in some development that is aimed at putting the company on a more secure financial footing. I can't really disclose the full details of this but the work is not consultancy and the end result will hopefully be a "novel" way of securing Object Arts' stability into the future. We hope to have this effort complete (at least to the point where it will only require minimal ongoing maintenance) by the end of this month (May 04). After this point we will be able to get back to full strength on Dolphin 6 development. I apologize to all our users who are eager to get hold of the next major version of Dolphin but, realistically, I would guess that these delays will mean that you are unlikely to be able to do so before the end of this year. Even so, I hope that most of you will agree with Chris' comments above (that Dolphin 5 is a good system) and will be able to weather this delay with only minimal inconvenience. I would also like to re-iterate my previous comment about D6 upgrades; Anyone who purchases Dolphin 5 from January 2004 onwards will be upgraded to Dolphin 6 (when it becomes available) at only the difference in price. Hence you won't be penalized by buying, or upgrading to, Dolphin 5 now. Best regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support www.object-arts.com |
Andy,
> 2) More importantly from the delay perspective, over the last two > months we have been engaged in some development that is aimed at > putting the company on a more secure financial footing. I can't really > disclose the full details of this but the work is not consultancy and > the end result will hopefully be a "novel" way of securing Object Arts' > stability into the future. My intense curiosity aside<g>, this sounds great. Good luck with it! > I apologize to all our users who are eager to get hold of the next > major version of Dolphin but, realistically, I would guess that these > delays will mean that you are unlikely to be able to do so before the > end of this year. Even so, I hope that most of you will agree with > Chris' comments above (that Dolphin 5 is a good system) and will be > able to weather this delay with only minimal inconvenience. D5 is excellent, and I am in no particular bind. As is usually the case, I am more interested "not before" estimates (to not be caught by surprise) than I am in precise delivery dates. I would like to see you update the D5.1 installers. The updated DLLs are greatly appreciated, but require effort to place on "other machines". Have a good one, Bill -- Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. [hidden email] |
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]... > Well, in a unprecedented display of openness ;-) let me try and explain > the current position regarding Dolphin 6. As you may have guessed (by > virtue of the fact that D6 is not already out there) we are running > late with the development. There are, in the main, two reasons for this: I appreciate the communication and the situation. If at some point you can "spill the beans" about item two I am sure we would all be curious to hear about it. > I apologize to all our users who are eager to get hold of the next > major version of Dolphin but, realistically, I would guess that these > delays will mean that you are unlikely to be able to do so before the > end of this year. Even so, I hope that most of you will agree with > Chris' comments above (that Dolphin 5 is a good system) and will be > able to weather this delay with only minimal inconvenience. Thats OK, we can wait for our new toy. ;) However if at some point there were a beta available (even if not complete) I am sure quite a few of us would be happy to kick it around for you, even under NDA if need be. I especially would like to encourage you to make a beta available to third-party tool vendors before the official release to give them an opportunity to migrate their tools as soon as possible. Good luck with all your development. We shall look forward to the results. Chris |
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
Andy Bower wrote:
[...] > > I would also like to re-iterate my previous comment about D6 upgrades; > Anyone who purchases Dolphin 5 from January 2004 onwards will be > upgraded to Dolphin 6 (when it becomes available) at only the > difference in price. Hence you won't be penalized by buying, or > upgrading to, Dolphin 5 now. Andy, Sorry, if I am asking what might be obvious, but does that also apply to upgrading WITHIN Dolpin 5? In my case I have DVE5 and I am currently contemplating to upgrade to the Professional Edition. With Best Wishes for a speedy Dolphin 6.0 Development, Bernhard -- (Please remove all numerical digits from the sender address for a valid email address. Thanks.) |
Bernhard,
> > I would also like to re-iterate my previous comment about D6 > > upgrades; Anyone who purchases Dolphin 5 from January 2004 onwards > > will be upgraded to Dolphin 6 (when it becomes available) at only > > the difference in price. Hence you won't be penalized by buying, or > > upgrading to, Dolphin 5 now. > > Andy, > > Sorry, if I am asking what might be obvious, but does that also apply > to upgrading WITHIN Dolpin 5? In my case I have DVE5 and I am > currently contemplating to upgrade to the Professional Edition. Yes. If you upgrade to D5 Pro now you will be eligible for D6 Pro (or equivalent) at only the difference in the price between the full copies of those versions. I'm sorry if this still sounds confusing but the idea is simple; there should be no disadvantage for you to upgrade now rather than wait for D6. Best regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support www.object-arts.com |
Andy,
Thank you so much for your confirmation, that was exactly what I was looking for. Bernhard (now using D5 _Pro_) Andy Bower wrote: > Bernhard, [...] > > >>Sorry, if I am asking what might be obvious, but does that also apply >>to upgrading WITHIN Dolpin 5? In my case I have DVE5 and I am >>currently contemplating to upgrade to the Professional Edition. > > > Yes. If you upgrade to D5 Pro now you will be eligible for D6 Pro (or > equivalent) at only the difference in the price between the full copies > of those versions. I'm sorry if this still sounds confusing but the > idea is simple; there should be no disadvantage for you to upgrade now > rather than wait for D6. > > Best regards, > > Andy Bower > Dolphin Support > www.object-arts.com -- (Please remove all numerical digits from the sender address for a valid email address. Thanks.) |
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
Andy Bower wrote:
... > I would also like to re-iterate my previous comment about D6 upgrades; > Anyone who purchases Dolphin 5 from January 2004 onwards will be > upgraded to Dolphin 6 (when it becomes available) at only the > difference in price. Hence you won't be penalized by buying, or > upgrading to, Dolphin 5 now. This sounds great. My concern is backwards compatibility. If I develop on 5, how likely is it that my application will work out of the box on D6 too? I hope you take this concern into account seriously. D5 is promoted as the "XP" version. It would be great to actually have a set of unit-tests within it, making it sure everything works as before when stepping up to the next version. I also applaud you trying to get more financial stability. Looking at http://object-arts.com/Home.htm it strikes me that it states the site was last updated June 28, 2003, almost a year ago. I understand there has been some patches issued since, but there seems to be no mention of these. I assume with more money, there'll be more marketing, and a more up-to-date website too. Thanks & best success -Panu Viljamaa |
"Panu" <panu@fcc.net_NOZPAM> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]... > I assume with more money, there'll be more marketing, and > a more up-to-date website too. If we're lucky, we might even get documentation. |
In reply to this post by Panu-4
Panu,
> > I would also like to re-iterate my previous comment about D6 > > upgrades; Anyone who purchases Dolphin 5 from January 2004 onwards > > will be upgraded to Dolphin 6 (when it becomes available) at only > > the difference in price. Hence you won't be penalized by buying, or > > upgrading to, Dolphin 5 now. > > This sounds great. My concern is backwards compatibility. > If I develop on 5, how likely is it that my application > will work out of the box on D6 too? I hope you take this > concern into account seriously. I'm afraid we can't guarantee this. We usually try to maintain backwards compatibility between "point" releases within a major version (e.g. between 5.0 and 5.1) but we use the major version releases as an opportunity to "burn the disk packs" when it becomes necessary. What I mean by this is that, if there is some inconsistency in the Dolphin class hierarchy which needs to be addressed or a new feature that should be implemented but doing so would compromise compatibility, then we like to have the freedom to proceed regardless. That said, I can't think of any compatibility problems that D6 as it stands would introduce for D5 users; it's just that we don't guarantee compatiblity between major versions. > D5 is promoted as the "XP" version. It would be great to > actually have a set of unit-tests within it, making it > sure everything works as before when stepping up to the > next version. Well, XP arrived rather late to the Dolphin development party. We do have a growing number of unit tests for the base system but these are being retrofitted as areas of the class library are revisited, either for bug fixes or new developments. I believe this is the recommended XP approach for integrating XP into an existing project (XP Explained, Beck, p126). It's possible, I suppose that we could make these tests available but there is far from complete coverage. > I also applaud you trying to get more financial stability. > Looking at http://object-arts.com/Home.htm it strikes me > that it states the site was last updated June 28, 2003, > almost a year ago. I understand there has been some patches > issued since, but there seems to be no mention of these. > I assume with more money, there'll be more marketing, and > a more up-to-date website too. There will be a new website and Wiki and online documentation for D6. Best regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support www.object-arts.com |
In reply to this post by Christopher J. Demers
Chris,
> "Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message > news:[hidden email]... > > Well, in a unprecedented display of openness ;-) let me try and > > explain the current position regarding Dolphin 6. As you may have > > guessed (by virtue of the fact that D6 is not already out there) we > > are running late with the development. There are, in the main, two > > reasons for this: > > I appreciate the communication and the situation. If at some point > you can "spill the beans" about item two I am sure we would all be > curious to hear about it. As you may have seen on c.l.s, the beans are spilled here: www.alchemetrics.org Best regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support www.object-arts.com |
Andy,
> As you may have seen on c.l.s, the beans are spilled here: > > www.alchemetrics.org I hope this means that you have found something that is interesting in itself, and will allow Dolphin to produce lots of money for you. A few random comments/questions about the web site: ================================================ The have been 5 occasions (as of Oct 04) where an error in the Smalltalk code has been detected at runtime (with a walkback) and has been fixed by use of the built-in debugger. ================================================ That must mean that you elected (and there is obviously nothing stopping me from following your lead, save an extra license or two) to run the IDE on live machines. Are there any pros or cons, other than the obvious ability to fix errors on the fly? Do you worry about recursive walkbacks turning a small problem into a big one? ================================================ The Interactive Brokers Java client responsible for the broker API has crashed 6 times causing several position entry problems. Indeed, the issue was so severe that we now run the Java code on a separate computer which can be rebooted when necessary independently of the other TWB trading machines. Having said this, the IB client has become more stable in recent months. ================================================ ROTFL. This is almost exactly the experience I had with Novell client software of years past. They have improved a lot (not to be mistaken for an endorsement<g>), but were at one time a BSOD waiting to happen. We designed around it by the same technique. I still tend to isolate most "clients" this way, both because it reduces their ability to clobber my machines, and because doing so often unloads a lot of work from the main machine. ================================================ The Java client was auto-updated by Interactive Brokers on July 21st 2004 and that version refused to accept orders for the entire day (insufficient testing?). The problem was fixed by another auto-update the following day. ================================================ Ouch! If you/they are doing what I assume you are, that's a lot of money to have sitting idle (or worse trapped in a bad position) for 24 hours. Dumb question: Interactive Brokers is a separate entity, that likes to program in Java instead of sipping while working with a Smalltalk IDE? Put another way, are you using Java because it was forced on you by trading service? Good luck!!! Bill -- Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. [hidden email] |
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]... >> "Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message >> news:[hidden email]... >> > Well, in a unprecedented display of openness ;-) let me try and >> > explain the current position regarding Dolphin 6. As you may have >> > guessed (by virtue of the fact that D6 is not already out there) we >> > are running late with the development. There are, in the main, two >> > reasons for this: >> >> I appreciate the communication and the situation. If at some point >> you can "spill the beans" about item two I am sure we would all be >> curious to hear about it. > > As you may have seen on c.l.s, the beans are spilled here: > > www.alchemetrics.org Very cool, thanks for sharing the info. I wish you guys great success. Somehow I suspected your project was something like this. I will be looking at the site in more detail as time permits. Some time ago I wrote a simulated trading program in Dolphin. I called it HAL. It used some multi-day trend analysis to generate a collection of stocks to watch for entry points during the day. To spiff it up a bit I even had the little talking wizard announce the trades as they happened. It was fun to listen to it calling out the orders. I used STB to persist the data overnight. We started with 1 million (simulated) dollars, unfortunately it lost a few hundred thousand dollars over a few weeks. :( We still use Dolphin to generate indicators, but I have put the idea of a fully automated trading system on hold for a while. ;) Smalltalk is great for simulation. It would be cool if your new site can reach a new audience of potential developers. Chris |
In reply to this post by Andy Bower-3
Andy,
> As you may have seen on c.l.s, the beans are spilled here: > > www.alchemetrics.org That is a very nice site. And a good advertisement for (Dolphin) Smalltalk -- one thing that really shines through is a strong impression that you were having tremendous /fun/ writing those systems. It's somewhat jarring to click through from the plushy good taste of alchemetrics.org to the comparatively trashy-looking sites that you reference ;-) BTW, I noticed a few small problems on the site, I mention them here on the off-chance that you are interested.... You are missing an 'm' in 'maxi um' on the 'Money Management' page. 'Web service' page lacks an 'of' between 'number strategies'. On the (entertaining!) 'No Bugs ?' page I think it should be 'experience backED up by the TWB'. Another small problem is that the fonts are sometimes too small for me to read on my monitor, if I tell my browser to increase the font size then the left-hand contents menu gets screwed-up (I'm using the latest Mozilla Firefox). -- chris |
In reply to this post by Schwab,Wilhelm K
Bill,
> > A few random comments/questions about the web site: > > > ================================================ > The have been 5 occasions (as of Oct 04) where an error in the > Smalltalk code has been detected at runtime (with a walkback) and has > been fixed by use of the built-in debugger. > ================================================ > > That must mean that you elected (and there is obviously nothing > stopping me from following your lead, save an extra license or two) > to run the IDE on live machines. Are there any pros or cons, other > than the obvious ability to fix errors on the fly? Do you worry > about recursive walkbacks turning a small problem into a big one? There don't appear to be any problems. We don't tend to do new development on that image; it's just for cathcing bugs (either with walkbacks or #asserts). A couple of extra things it allows: 1) The ability to include inspectors as part of the application. These are useful as, sort of, an under the bonnet (hood) way of looking around the app to make sure everything is working ok. It also means that one doesn't have to develop a GUI for important but rarely used interfaces (remember this isn't an end-user for the masses application so we can get away with this). 2) We don't do it yet but we will, at some point, add the ability for the workbench to "self test" by running a subset of the test cases before each morning's market session. I say, "a subset", because the full suite takes a long time to run (partly because we have to launch the broker's Java app over an over again) and partly because some tests can occasionally fail (again due to the way we are forced to test the broker interface). > ================================================ > The Interactive Brokers Java client responsible for the broker API > has crashed 6 times causing several position entry problems. Indeed, > the issue was so severe that we now run the Java code on a separate > computer which can be rebooted when necessary independently of the > other TWB trading machines. Having said this, the IB client has > become more stable in recent months. > ================================================ > > ROTFL. This is almost exactly the experience I had with Novell > client software of years past. They have improved a lot (not to be > mistaken for an endorsement<g>), but were at one time a BSOD waiting > to happen. We designed around it by the same technique. I still tend > to isolate most "clients" this way, both because it reduces their > ability to clobber my machines, and because doing so often unloads a > lot of work from the main machine. Well I must confess that the J*va stuff has become more reliable of late (there hasn't been a crash in the last two months) but it was a severe situation in the early days. I'm pretty sure those crashes were deadlocks but they demanded that the J*va machine had to be killed from the Task Manager. And here is another issue; we have to run one copy of the J*va app for each account being traded. Typically only one of these would lock up but we still had to kill both (via termination of the J*va VM) will double the resultant chaos, of course. I didn't count it but I reckon these problems have cost us a significant amount since May. Another reason we continue to run the J*va apps on a sole machine is that they hog a significant amount of processing power. It is interesting to note that our Dolphin monitoring code can scan ~2500 stocks continuously on a 3G Pentium using <30% CPU but two J*va windows can't show 80 odd positions without eating up 80% CPU at busy times (like the open). So much for Java being fast! We found that quite a lot of the processing goes in repainting the price changes as they come in so not only do we have to banish J*va to a second machine but we also minimize the windows help the poor fellow out a bit more. Now, I know that the Dolphin VM is unlikely to be able to take on hotspot in a one-to-one faceoff but all this just goes to show that low level benchmarks are pretty much useless when trying to predict the speed of a large (or, indeed, any) application. Much more important is the ability to design good OO code and this will likely result in good efficiency (and refactoring will play a big part here). > > ================================================ > The Java client was auto-updated by Interactive Brokers on July 21st > 2004 and that version refused to accept orders for the entire day > (insufficient testing?). The problem was fixed by another auto-update > the following day. ================================================ > > Ouch! If you/they are doing what I assume you are, that's a lot of > money to have sitting idle (or worse trapped in a bad position) for > 24 hours. > > Dumb question: Interactive Brokers is a separate entity, that likes > to program in Java instead of sipping while working with a Smalltalk > IDE? Put another way, are you using Java because it was forced on you > by trading service? Yes. IB offer a good brokerage service with an API that requires a Java app to be launched to use it (don't ask me why). There are a couple of other brokers with an API but they don't allow non-US residents to open accounts. Best regards, Andy Bower Dolphin Support www.object-arts.com |
Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |