Is the ActiveQuant example issues worth pursuing? For sure if you need to learn Interactive Broker connector or Open Tick adapters
I type in ActiveQuant tutorial, it seems there are many gripes against the framework for live examples. As compared to Marketcetera, I was able to successfully implement their Ruby trading strategies. This was thankfully due to their YouTube channel which got me up and running pretty quickly.
As for ActiveQuant, I have hit nothing but headaches when I try to run the imported into code. I am using of course Eclipse but it seems to throw all kinds of exceptions. As it stands, I am following the instructions for both Two Minute Tutorial under Documentation at the framework’s new home of ActiveStocks.eu. The old home still exists at activequant.org but it seems to have moved.
The Two Minute Tutorial seems to be easy to work with until you need to do some tweaks to ensure the Simple Back test java file can see the configuration files. I get exceptions but I would have thought this tutorial would run flawlessly. Nope so don’t expect that unless you are willing to spend a few extra minutes or hours to get something running.
The online documentation seems kind of scant where they assume you know what you are doing. Maybe, but it does not seem they are making easy for people new to Eclipse or Java or even Spring. ActiveQuant leverages pretty heavily off of Spring so know it before tinkering with this framework.
Outside of these gripes, I was able to install Active Quant code with no issue using their 122107 version when checking out of Subversion. Do note there are tonnes of Eclipse warning and errors when trying to import more recent versions. I do believe there was one more recent version which appeared to be stable but had Eclipse issues when checking it out.
The feature set does make it worthwhile in pursuing Active Quant as a potential framework to work with for your algo based high performance system. Just be prepared to work with it and be VERY patient. This is the only framework showing examples of how to import Yahoo, Open Tick, and Interactive Brokers connector and adapters. You need to buy the commercial version of Marketcetera to make that happen. You might learn how to write your own for Marketcetera using the one found in Active Quant. Again, this is worth it.
As for framework momentum, I do believe that documentation will need to be radically improved to have it mainstream. This is how Java frameworks like Hibernate, Struts, and Spring made it. There was a very supportive community that made life easier for the newbies working with these. Let’s hope ActiveQaunt can make that happen.