What does "unsupported" mean?

[ETFVoyageur]

I understand the obvious. I also understand why it has to be this way. If something is "unsupported"

• You may or may not answer questions about it. People should be grateful if you do answer questions about it, but no should depend on you answering questions about it, nor should anyone blame you if you choose not to, or are unable to, answer questions about it.

• It may or may not work well. It may seem to work well, but there may be hidden gotcha's waiting to rise up and bite you.

• You do not feel obligated to maintain compatibility with/for it. It may or may not work well, or even work at all, in a future release. No one should blame you if it does not continue to work in a future release. If it breaks in a future release, it will be up the developer (not NT) to figure out how to fix it -- if that is even possible.

My question is that it seems to me that there are several categories of "unsupported" and I do not know how to tell them apart. Is there any guidance on this? Is there any way to tell which of the following is the case for any particular case of "unsupported"?

• You may know that it is a bad idea and wish to actively discourage anyone from doing that.

• You simply do not know about it. Might be OK and might not, but it is outside your knowledge.

• As far as you know, it is fine -- you just want to be clear that NT feels no obligation to provide support or to maintain compatibility.

--EV

[NinjaTrader_Austin]

You may know that it is a bad idea and wish to actively discourage anyone from doing that.

If that is the case, we generally try to inform the user of the better way to do it (if one exists), and if it does not, we will assist.

You simply do not know about it. Might be OK and might not, but it is outside your knowledge.

In cases like these, we try to contact a coworker who does know for the correct answer. I work only weekends, so that is why I post "I will have someone respond to you on Monday" if I do not know the answer.

As far as you know, it is fine -- you just want to be clear that NT feels no obligation to provide support or to maintain compatibility.

I'm not sure what you mean by "as far as you [I?] know, it is fine", but the standard line/reason for why we say it is unsupported is because it simply is not in the help guide, so you are on your own for figuring it out. Many unsupported "features" can and do change with new versions of NT, rendering custom code using these "features" useless. If these features were supported, we would not change them without notifying users because they are expected to work.

EDIT: Clarified.

[ETFVoyageur]

Thanks, Austin

[eDanny]

If these features were supported, we would not change them because they are expected to work.

Be careful with statements like this. We know many supported features can get broken or replaced with upgrades. This is why I could never figure out why there was no help for unsupported features. It seems the main difference is that when a supported feature gets broken or replaced we are told about it in the documentation. Unsupported features are ignored because they are unsupported. Am I close with this assessment?

Dan

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

In short, unsupported simply means that they are not documented. Anything not documented is subject to change without notification and we will not provide technical support for although there of course are exceptions. Documented NinjaScript can be changed but we do our best not to break anything and of course we provide technical support for.

[NinjaTrader_Austin]

eDanny, you are correct. I have changed my original post. Documented features that get changed in new versions include a warning.