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Finance means different things to different people. Are we talking about trading "finance" (including high frequency trading), investment banking "spreadsheet"

Finance means different things to different people. Are we talking about trading "finance" (including high frequency trading), investment banking "spreadsheet" finance, consumer or corporate "database" finance or maybe even (the horror, the horror) "defi" cryptofinance? What is true is that finance in almost all its guises is a world apart in terms of information technology. Closed and proprietary, ultra expensive and arcane, highly regulated etc., it is an information technology branch that evolved separately and it shows. Whether that will remain so is an interesting question. So called "fintech" has been a thing for a while. E.g. whatsapp is famously built on erlang, so if Meta wants to turn it into a super-app (the "Asian way") you will have a de-facto application in "consumer" mobile/payments finance.

djtango 4y ago
Wasn't WeChat built in Erlang as well?
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  I think WhatsApp was Elixir
  - qohen 4y ago
    I think WhatsApp was Elixir Erlang, actually; and they're still using it -- here's a paper-abstract[0] from Sept.2022 (and video of a talk[1]) about their open-source "EqWAlizer" tool[2] for statically-typing Erlang (as-is). (EqWAlizer was discussed on an Erlang-related podcast[3], including its relationship to Dialyzer -- the original Erlang type-checking tool -- and it was briefly discussed on HN[4]). [0] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3546186.3552537 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3546186.3552537 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do9f2FKsKxM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do9f2FKsKxM [2] https://github.com/WhatsApp/eqwalizer https://github.com/WhatsApp/eqwalizer [3] https://www.beamrad.io/35 https://www.beamrad.io/35 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32330284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32330284
    - jjtheblunt 4y ago
      Thank you!
eggy 4y ago
The one big use case was RabbitMQ in a messaging app, not HFT. I doubt Elixir even with Nx can compete with low-level HFT code. Python DL/ML code libraries are just wrappers around C too. Maybe if BeamAsm and Nx are used Elixir could be used for more numerical or not just distributed applications. I've programmed in Python and Julia, and when I worked at an engineering (mechanical, entertainment engineering) company, Julia was great for its similarity to Matlab. I am a self-taught engineer, so I did not get pulled into Matlab in college. Personally, I took to Erlang, so I could write plugins for Wings3D back in the early 2000s, but I never stuck with Erlang, or Wings3D (Blender3D was my choice and I even contributed to have it go opensource way back when). I like Erlang's syntax better for some reason, although Elixir's is beautiful too. I was not a Ruby programmer, and I had delved into Haskell and Prolog, so I think Erlang made more sense to me. I think Elixir has a lot more momentum behind it than Erlang, but at the root it's Erlang, so I think I'll stick with Erlang for BEAM apps. My favorite language is April[1] (APL in Lisp), and given my love of J, would be a better fit for any finance apps I might write. I am trying to convert some of the Lisp code in this book, "Professional Automated Trading: Theory and Practice" to April. Maybe I'll write some equivalent Elixir code to compare. [1] https://github.com/phantomics/april https://github.com/phantomics/april
- qohen 4y ago
  Given your love for Lisp, and your knowledge of Erlang, perhaps Robert Virding's Lisp Flavored Erlang (LFE) might be of interest? http://lfe.io http://lfe.io -- among other things, the site has tutorials and some edits of Lisp books (e.g. SICP) rewritten to use LFE. (And, from what I've heard, LFE is being used in financial apps, though perhaps more along the lines of expert-systems than regular financial apps? (Sadly, my knowledge is at best second-hand)). P.S. Nice to finally run into someone who has actually used Wings3D -- it gets brought up as an example of a significant Erlang project, and I know there's a community of people who were/are using it, but, since it's not a technically-oriented tool, even at Erlang conferences one is unlikely to run into Wings3D people.
  - eggy 4y ago
    I delved into LFE, and I was a proponent when Elixir was just catching on, but Elixir's momentum just washed it away. I believe Elixir earned it, but I think it had a heavy kickstart from all of the Ruby programmers who took to it. And they say syntax doesn't matter ;) It is my understanding LFE makes a lot of compromises as a list in trying to work nicely with the Erlang VM (BEAM). I really wish Gleam kept the more Haskelly/ML syntax instead of shooting for the popularity contest by becoming more Algol or C-like. Slim Whitman allegedly sold more records than the Beatles, but I would rather listen to the Beatles!

djtango 4y ago

Wasn't WeChat built in Erlang as well?

jjtheblunt 4y ago
I think WhatsApp was Elixir
- qohen 4y ago
  I think WhatsApp was Elixir Erlang, actually; and they're still using it -- here's a paper-abstract[0] from Sept.2022 (and video of a talk[1]) about their open-source "EqWAlizer" tool[2] for statically-typing Erlang (as-is). (EqWAlizer was discussed on an Erlang-related podcast[3], including its relationship to Dialyzer -- the original Erlang type-checking tool -- and it was briefly discussed on HN[4]). [0] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3546186.3552537 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3546186.3552537 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do9f2FKsKxM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do9f2FKsKxM [2] https://github.com/WhatsApp/eqwalizer https://github.com/WhatsApp/eqwalizer [3] https://www.beamrad.io/35 https://www.beamrad.io/35 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32330284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32330284
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    Thank you!

eggy 4y ago

The one big use case was RabbitMQ in a messaging app, not HFT. I doubt Elixir even with Nx can compete with low-level HFT code. Python DL/ML code libraries are just wrappers around C too. Maybe if BeamAsm and Nx are used Elixir could be used for more numerical or not just distributed applications. I've programmed in Python and Julia, and when I worked at an engineering (mechanical, entertainment engineering) company, Julia was great for its similarity to Matlab. I am a self-taught engineer, so I did not get pulled into Matlab in college. Personally, I took to Erlang, so I could write plugins for Wings3D back in the early 2000s, but I never stuck with Erlang, or Wings3D (Blender3D was my choice and I even contributed to have it go opensource way back when). I like Erlang's syntax better for some reason, although Elixir's is beautiful too. I was not a Ruby programmer, and I had delved into Haskell and Prolog, so I think Erlang made more sense to me. I think Elixir has a lot more momentum behind it than Erlang, but at the root it's Erlang, so I think I'll stick with Erlang for BEAM apps. My favorite language is April[1] (APL in Lisp), and given my love of J, would be a better fit for any finance apps I might write. I am trying to convert some of the Lisp code in this book, "Professional Automated Trading: Theory and Practice" to April. Maybe I'll write some equivalent Elixir code to compare. [1] https://github.com/phantomics/april https://github.com/phantomics/april

qohen 4y ago
Given your love for Lisp, and your knowledge of Erlang, perhaps Robert Virding's Lisp Flavored Erlang (LFE) might be of interest? http://lfe.io http://lfe.io -- among other things, the site has tutorials and some edits of Lisp books (e.g. SICP) rewritten to use LFE. (And, from what I've heard, LFE is being used in financial apps, though perhaps more along the lines of expert-systems than regular financial apps? (Sadly, my knowledge is at best second-hand)). P.S. Nice to finally run into someone who has actually used Wings3D -- it gets brought up as an example of a significant Erlang project, and I know there's a community of people who were/are using it, but, since it's not a technically-oriented tool, even at Erlang conferences one is unlikely to run into Wings3D people.
- eggy 4y ago
  I delved into LFE, and I was a proponent when Elixir was just catching on, but Elixir's momentum just washed it away. I believe Elixir earned it, but I think it had a heavy kickstart from all of the Ruby programmers who took to it. And they say syntax doesn't matter ;) It is my understanding LFE makes a lot of compromises as a list in trying to work nicely with the Erlang VM (BEAM). I really wish Gleam kept the more Haskelly/ML syntax instead of shooting for the popularity contest by becoming more Algol or C-like. Slim Whitman allegedly sold more records than the Beatles, but I would rather listen to the Beatles!