Net Framework 3.5 & Ninjatrader 7.x - discussion

[kronie]

NT 7.x still lives, and for me, it holds penchant, however being based on the 2007 Microsoft NetFramework 3.5 protocols means that inspite of the advances in the AMD and Intel latest chipsets, as well as the SSD & M.2 drives there remains significant bottlenecks and impediments to more reliable operation and less overhead on machine resources.

Bluntly, is there any way that the forced dependency upon NetFramework 3.5 be upgraded to the latest version or even the 4.0 protocol? This wouild seem logical and compatible as the later Framework versions benefit from multi-core and multi-thread resources.

While there remains quite a few of us who hae substantial investment in proesses, procedures and patterns well established under NT7, I personally regret the ability not to shift to NT8 and find myself still dependent upon NT7.x

[kronie]

My thesis is the Visual Studio has undergone substantial and significant improvements and capable of making vastly better use of the substantially better I9, i7, i5 & i3 Intel chipsets and motherboard improvements, what with NetFramework is based on a 2007 protocol.

This thread and question is focused at the Ninja technical staff. Adjusting the base level language support package has already been done for the most part by Microsoft (at least in theory and practice of progressively supporting older features).

What is involved with this thread?, this question?, this massive bottleneck issue?

I estimate NT7.x would become just slightly slower than NT8 instead of being on orders of magnitutde slower.

NT?

[NinjaTrader_Heath]

Hello Kronie,

Thank you for your post.

Unfortunately .Net 3.5 is a core toolset used in the development of NinjaTrader 7 and would not be possible to simply replace. In this instance if you'd like to use a later version of .Net we would encourage you to use NinjaTrader 8, which uses .Net 4.5

If you're stuck on NinjaTrader 7 because of third party items not being upgraded, I would encourage you to reach out to the developers of those items to let them know you would like a NinjaTrader 8 compatible version. Pressure

Please reach out to us if you need any additional assistance.

[kronie]

Care to enumerate what the impediments to freeing up NT7 from the NF 3.5 / 2007 protocols? are?

It sounds good and plays well on the circuit but the reality is many of the developers no longer exist or aren't capable of transitions to NT8. In some cases their license to distribute or modify can not be secured or extended. In some cases tracing the source of many indicators just are not possible or haven't produced results so many way far beyond me, are stuck with the significant and substantial investment in and on that platform with no recourse.

Frankly, what I personally find poorly executed is having cut off a means of migration that does not require learning a whole new platform and method forces one to completely abandon many thousands dollars in trading experiences, indicators, screen configurations and such. Should one consider having to start all over again, as one is forced to do in transfering to NT8, then the choice, well, to put it delicately means you have to start all over again.

So. Let's open up the discussion on why / what / what can be - done to bring NT7 closer to modern times and here is why:

a) I can't remember what Pentium processor was current in 2007 - 2009, if any. We are at Core 9 Intel capable chips and they loose their superior facets (speed, throughput, features, etc) with software as old as 2007 Visual Studio / NetFramework 3.5 protocols

b) Irrespective of whatever newer motherboard processor multi-thread / multi-core configuration, nothing improves in terms of speed or ease of use (NT7)


Let's start this discussion again with a more hopeful, enlightend response

[NinjaTrader_Heath]

Hello kronie,

Thank you for your reply.

To get right to your questions, the biggest impediment to freeing NinjaTrader 7 from .NET 3.5 is that we're utilizing specific tools available in the .net 3.5 toolset that are hard coded into the application. In order to fully integrate with the newer tools available in later versions of .net as well as newer features like multi-threading, it required that we rebuild the platform effectively from the ground up using those tools and with that functionality in mind.

This would effectively be a form of Brain surgery with NinjaTrader 7, which would still require any third party items to update their code to be compatible with the update and those tools in the new code.

Which is what we did with NinjaTrader 8, as well as implementing over 500 new features specifically requested by users.

The NinjaTrader 7 platform was built before these items were available. We've updated it about as far as the platform could be updated before it required that we rebuilt the program with these items in mind. Which is where NinjaTrader 8 was born.

Again, even if we updated the NinjaTrader 7 platform to use these new tools only, any third party developers would still need to update their code to be compatible with this upgrade.

I certainly understand your frustration in not having the availability of these third party items in NinjaTrader 8, whether it's because the devs will not update the code, or that those developers are no longer working. However it's not possible for us as NinjaTrader to force those third party developers to update their code.

As we understand many users are in this situation, we still provide support for NinjaTrader 7, and updates to that older version of the platform to be compatible with certain technology where possible. Which you can see in the changelog for NinjaTrader 7 (https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...ease_notes.htm) despite the fact that NinjaTrader 8 has been released since 2016.

If you would like to take advantage of these tools you'll need to update to NinjaTrader 8 which was built specifically with those tools in mind, however there is nothing preventing you from running NinjaTrader 7 to use the indicators you're unable to update and have invested so heavily in, alongside NinjaTrader 8 with those new options available as long as your personal computer can support it.

Additionally for your reference, we don't expect users to just update to the new version without any educational training and support. We've built and maintain a full training series on using NinjaTrader 8.

Below, you will find links to some FREE publicly available resources to help you become a NinjaTrader power user.

• Live Training Webinars: http://ninjatrader.com/PlatformTraining
• NinjaTrader's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/NinjaTraderLLC/featured
  • NinjaTrader 8 Training Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...ZmVnauWXkWe0Nf
• Online Help Guide: http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/en-us/
• Video Library: http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpG...eo_library.htm

Please feel free to write in to PlatformSupport(at)NinjaTrader(dot)com with any additional NinjaTrader items we may assist with.