Gary,
As a 'third party' program programmer, perhaps I can shed some perspective on the problem. TC2000 V3 or V4 have binary encoded databases ie the data fields in the database are not pure ASCII text (readable by programs like NOTEPAD) but instead they are composed of binary things like floating point or unsigned char types of data representations(only a computer program can make sense of these).
Now, TC2000 V3 has had its database structure (the who, where and what type of computer data type each database field is composed of) understood for a long time. Third party folk could then design algorithms to pick out the date, price, volume, open interest, etc data entries and then convert them into a form that is usable and readable by their programs.
Now, in V3 the date field has been arranged in the format YYMMDD when decoded from it's binary form. Even in the databases you can create today that include dates in 1999 the date will get 'extracted' and look like YYMMDD eg. 991231.
BUT beginning with Monday's data, the extracted data looks like: 103000, Tuesday looks like 104000, Wednesday 105000. Is this MDDYYY?
Well... this does form a pattern, but what will it look like in October? A01000? Nov = B01000? Or what will Jan 1, 2001 look like? 101001? Worden hasn't told me, and I did ask them. So now does a 'third party' have to track the dates until they are past 991231 with the old technique and then cross over to some new technique??
I don't think it is just an 'out of sync' problem, it's a What's the definition of how you're going to represent the date? problem. A problem with a solution that Worden hasn't shared. Perhaps they have a bug that is putting data bytes into the wrong place in the 'convert to V3' code?
One other point, as a third party programmer, I am reluctant to 'fix' my program to read the 'new' date data layout until Worden tells us that they aren't going to either 'fix' or permanently change the 'definition' of what we can expect to find in the date field.
Just a view from the other side of the fence....
Ben A.
ez-pnf.com |
