Why is C++ good for Quantitative Finance? Top 3 reasons

[Daniel Duffy]

C++ is great for computer graphics and CAD applications. That's where I started.

 

[alain]

... now enrolling in an office university JAVA course and find it a pain in the *ss

if you think Java is a PIA, don't look at C/C++

 

[Daniel Duffy]

There is actually a trend (or at least it appeared) to start into to CS 101 with Python. I learned (a bit of) Python in my own time before now enrolling in an office university JAVA course and find it a pain in the *ss . But I have to spend a lot of less time on the course than my fellow courses, because I already understand the algorythms.

I would love to learn some JAVA / C / Lisp ideas, but just stick to Python afterwards. At least in academics Python is already #1 afa I can tell.

You learn by doing, not by ideas in this particular context. In industry, you can't pick and choose. Flexible.

 

[Michael M]

C++ is great for computer graphics and CAD applications. That's where I started.

I guess I did too, haha, - but it was in BASIC I think in a computer "science" course in 7th grade around 1992. It was the most exciting thing I had scene when it started colorful drawing lines on the screen. If we had had an actual computer at home I might have gone straight to CS in school!

 

[Polter]

1. libraries for number crunching
2. libraries for number crunching
3. libraries for number crunching
// the above also includes ancillary-to-number-crunching libs, like the ones for parallel computing

 

[Daniel Duffy]

4. Modelling complex objects.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

I guess I did too, haha, - but it was in BASIC I think in a computer "science" course in 7th grade around 1992. It was the most exciting thing I had scene when it started colorful drawing lines on the screen. If we had had an actual computer at home I might have gone straight to CS in school!

Graphics is great!

Here is an article from 1995 on CADObject in C++ that we built for engineering apps and still use.

http://www.datasim.nl/Education/Articles/DP/WhitePaper2.html

 

[Daniel Duffy]

1. libraries for number crunching
2. libraries for number crunching
3. libraries for number crunching
// the above also includes ancillary-to-number-crunching libs, like the ones for parallel computing

Fortran excels++ at number crunching and has buckets of libraries that exist for > 50 years. It is king.

C++ is good for other reasons in addition to 1.

 

[Polter]

Fortran excels++ at number crunching and has buckets of libraries that exist for > 50 years. It is king.

C++ is good for other reasons in addition to 1.

Indeed, Fortran could be considered a numerics-oriented DSL (although I'd say there's a greater variety in the numerical linear algebra libs in C++ nowadays -- and most of the Fortran libs have a C/C++ version or are accessible from C/C++, while modern, C++ template libs aren't available from Fortran; although I certainly wouldn't mind some of this stuff coming into Standard C++ -- even that A(I,J) syntax, if you know what I mean...).
It's just when you'd like to do something with the number-crunching engine (e.g., feed it some data over the network, interact with your models via Excel, produce pretty pictures) where the general purpose nature of C++ comes in handy -- let's stick it all under the ancillary-to-number-crunching label ;]

 

[Lindizwi]

Hi to all .I'm a student planning to do an MSc in Applied Mathematics with the focus in Financial Mathematics research.My MSc will be research base>Now woulds like some advice.I don't know which software to between C++,MATLAb and VB.I plan to seek for job in finance/financial industry but don't know much about what I have to .I can see comment being posted about c++ but don't know much about it ...

 

[ExSan]

which school ?

 

[tfors]

Sorry, offtopic but just a small question:

How many hours of studying C++ (or JAVA) would it take to be able to contribute something useful as a programmer? Let's say I spend 20 hours a week on it..

 

[Polter]

tfors: 10,000.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

"The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. "

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Sorry, offtopic but just a small question:

How many hours of studying C++ (or JAVA) would it take to be able to contribute something useful as a programmer? Let's say I spend 20 hours a week on it..

That's 10^4 hours in total.

 

[Lindizwi]

Hi to all .I'm a student planning to do an MSc in Applied Mathematics with the focus in Financial Mathematics research.My MSc will be research base>Now woulds like some advice.I don't know which software to between C++,MATLAb and VB.I plan to seek for job in finance/financial industry but don't know much about what I have to .I can see comment being posted about c++ but don't know much about it ...

The school is : School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science at University of KwaZulu-Natal(This University is at the country called South Africa).

 

[Barny]

I really wish people would stop perpetrating the 10,000 hours myth. The type and quality of practice is the most important thing, not the sum total of time spent practising.

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-and-performance-secrets.html

 

[alain]

I really wish people would stop perpetrating the 10,000 hours myth. The type and quality of practice is the most important thing, not the sum total of time spent practising.

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/08/talent-training-and-performance-secrets.html

Thank Gladwell for popularizing this bunch of croc...

 

[Daniel Duffy]

The type and quality of practice is the most important thing, not the sum total of time spent practising.
That's what you always say..

Apply this to C++. Can you come up with a training scheme so that you get to the level of Polter, for example?

In my case I reckon I have done [20, 40]K hours C++, all things taken into consideration.

As Alexander Pope said, a little learning is a dangerous thing.

This guy used to train in judo 7 hours per day!

 

[Lindizwi]

If c++ is as good as most people claim I'm not against that I just wanna know more about the best program to use to code as a Quant/upcoming Quant.What about the speed of c++ as compare to MATLAB and python is c++ much better than these programs in-terms of speed?