NinjaTrader 8.0.23, .Net Framework 4.8 and C# Version

[QuantKey_Bruce]

It's a complex topic that does not lend itself to quick proclamations of truth, but it's not at all clear that .NET Core is the right choice for a desktop app. See for instance https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/differ...net-framework/.

[jeronymite]

While considerations about the most appropriate Microsoft technology for the Desktop platform are good to ponder, the essential point to make is that C# 5.0 was released 11 years ago. C# 12.0 is slated for release at some stage, and still there is zero commitment from NinjaTrader to update this or any other of the vastly out-of-date and often unsupported, obsolete third-party products in the current release of the Desktop platform. Unless, this is taken seriously (not faux votes and lip service), the platform will continue to be a degraded, old technology container that frustrates modern, high-efficiency, highly-performant program development. That applies to NinjaTrader Development as much as to any third-party NinjaTrader development! And that means the platform suffers from self-inflicted neglect that makes its own development much harder!

Such disregard for the efficient and effective management of even its own internal Development environment is symptomatic of a malaise that has been obvious to many loyal, well-informed, capable programmers and traders for a very long time. Until such time as NinjaTrader Management recognises and actively addresses this, the Desktop platform will continue to degrade and may, sadly, became an anachronistic echo of what it could be. The rigidly opaque nature of the organisation does not engender confidence that any such vital epiphany will happen soon.

Thanks.

[Stefan Mayer]

Hi Chelsea,
please add me also to the voter list !
Thx !
(Any idea where NT stands with this?)

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello Stefan Mayer,

Thank you for your vote, I've added this to SFT-3124.

While I cannot provide an ETA or confirmation this request will be implemented, I am seeing this request has a high priority setting.

Please note, we receive many requests and cannot reasonably implement all requested features or changes. Interest is tracked internally and if enough interest is tracked, it would be weighed against how feasible it would be to make those changes to consider implementing, so we cannot offer an ETA or promise of fulfillment.

When new features are implemented, they will be listed in the Release Notes page of the Help Guide. The ID number may be different than the internal feature request tracking ID, but the description of the feature will let you know if that feature has been implemented.

Release Notes - https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...tes.htm

[QuantKey_Bruce]

While I cannot provide an ETA or confirmation this request will be implemented, I am seeing this request has a high priority setting.

I'm glad that the powers that be understand it is important to keep moving things forward - if NinjaTrader Desktop slips into a sort of maintenance-only mode and doesn't continue to take leaps forward, others will, and irreparable harm will be done to the company's future.

[Dr Kerry]

I purchased the NinjaTrader platform earlier this year naturally thinking that it is a modern well-maintained/up-to-date piece of software.

I am very familiar with the Wolfram language (a.k.a. Mathematica) from my professional R&D work. Mathematica is very rich in features for manipulating multidimensional arrays and lists and their elements in parallel. I am just now becoming somewhat proficient in C# and the development of trading strategies using NinjaScript.

Manipulating array elements in parallel is nothing new to me and it would seem inherently required for efficient scripting on this platform as so much depends upon calculations involving series and array elements. So I was quite shocked to learn that this is not possible to do in NinjaScript. I was even more shocked, and a bit angered, to learn that such functionality is not possible only because NinjaScript is based upon such an old version of C# that these simple, and quite necessary operations, are just not available in version 5 of C#. Yet such operational functionality has been available since 2019 when C# version 8 was released and included such things as the range operator ".." for manipulating groups of elements in an array together. Instead, I'm loading array elements one-at-time using "for loops" which is very slow and sloppy. It's not practical for a real-time trading environment where time is always of the essence. Professionally, I almost never use "for loops" for anything these days other than as a very last resort. Such loops were quite popular in the 1980's when FORTRAN was the primary scientific programming language.

I really hope that someone at Ninja gets on the ball, decides to bite-the-bullet, and update the platform to the latest version of C# in very short order. From the posts I read on this board it seems that they are not in much of a hurray to do anything at this time. My guess is that they're afraid of somehow breaking the platform by updating it and therefore have made the conscious decision to do nothing for as long as possible. In the high-tech/fin-tech world such a do-nothing strategy will only work for so long until they are soundly surpassed by all of the competition.

[QuantKey_Bruce]

Given that NinjaTrader_ChelseaB has stated it is a high priority, I think we can expect to see C# updates sooner rather than later.

[jeronymite]

QuantKey_Bruce Those statements have been made for years. Whilst I agree with you that we should hope to see it sooner rather than later, until it appears, it is a long-running high priority request that has seen zero visible action in all that time. One can only hope that the principle of maintaining software at recently-released levels of underpinning technology applies across the board. As we know, there is a huge amount of obsolete and long-unsupported software embedded in NT8.

Thanks.

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello Community,

NinjaTrader 8.1.2.0 now supports C# 8.

https://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/8_1_2_0.htm

[QuantKey_Bruce]

NinjaTrader_ChelseaB Thank you. Glad the release is ready.

[mafon]

Hi Chelsea,
please add me to the SFT-3124 voter list.

Thank you

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello mafon,

SFT-3124 for C# 8 has been marked as implemented and the ticket has been closed.

What version of C# are you now wanting to use?

[futurenow]

Hello Community,

NinjaTrader 8.1.2.0 now supports C# 8.
https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...t8/8_1_2_0.htm

Hello NinjaTrader_ChelseaB,

In that link about release notes, I can read it says:
"Updated compiler to use Roslyn ... This enhancement now grants you the flexibility to leverage C# features up to version 8 ..."

But I couldn't read about the .Net version itself.

What is the exact .Net current version and most important, where we can go and check this kind of details like the .Net version of the platform? for future references and no need to asking here about this kind of details or being reading every release notes etc.? I was thinking this kind of details could be found in the About... option, but no.

Thank you

[NinjaTrader_ChelseaB]

Hello futurenow,

The .NET version is still .NET 4.8, but has upgraded to the rosyln compiler which supports up to C# 8.

The .NET version is on the installation guide.

https://support.ninjatrader.com/s/article/NinjaTrader-Desktop-Installation-Guide

[QuantKey_Bruce]

.NET Framework is actually still at the 4.8 level - there's not a newer framework and I don't think there ever will be.

New development is largely shifted to .NET Core or other areas, so I wouldn't expect there to be a further release of .NET Framework beyond 4.8 where we are today unless it's very minor security fixes or something of that sort.