Will NT8 development be forked?

[bltdavid]

The most recent '8.0' release is 8.0.27.1.
But this is now the prior release.

Will there be any more releases on the '8.0' branch?

Why do I ask?
This thread implies the release of a future version 8.0.28.0.

Is the development being officially branched (commonly
called 'forked' in the software industry) such that the older
'8.0' branch will continue along side the new '8.1' branch?

-=o=-

Ok, so let's assume 'No' to my question.
(I can understand that.)

But, what about fixes?
Important fixes, such as, for security, adapters .. whatever.

That is, if any serious fixes go into the new '8.1' product line,
will serious consideration be given to back porting those fixes
into the '8.0' branch?

-=o=-

This is how bifurcation of a new flagship product starts. A well
liked product is altered so substantially that it results in poor
user reception & uptake of the newer 'modern' version.

Sometimes companies devote resources to maintain a prior
release with fixes and updates just to keep their user base
happy.

All the while, they're making changes & fixes to the newer
'modern' version, and soon they're begging/nagging users to
to upgrade to the newest release.

Has this kind of thing ever happened?
Of course, just ask Microsoft.

Could this be the start of a NinjaTrader bifurcation?
Probably much too soon to tell. But NinjaTrader
has a bad habit of ignoring it customers. (Ok, not
all customers, but enough.) So, if a real bifurcation
really does start to happen, this past weekend would
probably be considered the start date.

-=o=-

I will never be upgrading to 8.1 as long as that signon
dialog cannot be fully disabled. I don't even want to
see it once a year ... I'll 'sign-on' into the desktop one
time only, after that I want to be able to completely
disable the sign-on step so that for my second execution,
it's been completely bypassed.

Just my 2˘.

[Leeroy_Jenkins]

I hope so.

[jeronymite]

bltdavid makes a very valid point.

From the perspectives of both current NinjaTrader users and those yet-to-explore NinjaTrader, it is reasonable to say:

• Some will want to use the new login approach all the time
• Some will never want to see it ... ever!
• And some will want to use it sometimes, perhaps not at other times; meaning they will want the ability to disable/enable that functionality from time-to-time

The new login approach is a new paradigm (as industry pundits like to say) for NinjaTrader. The following points can be made:

• It is (probably) required for the web and mobile platforms -- that's not unreasonable, and given those platforms are new to NinjaTrader users, it's fair to say they should follow this methodology
• But it is a totally new approach for Desktop users -- this platform should have flexibility to accommodate the different views of existing users; it's a matter of respect for the installed base, after all
• The login popup on starting the Desktop is really just another window that requires action to move past -- it is, no doubt, entirely possible to not popup that window
• If it is not used, that then begs the question of user validation -- how does the platform validate who the user/system is, and what that user/system is entitled to do?
• Simply, use a licence, as has always been the case -- clearly, there is already a licence-to-UserEntitlements translation function, since that must be what is used to Import a licence and establish the new UserEntitlements
• There is only then the need to make the login a settable option in the Account portal -- relatively trivial in the scheme of things
• At that point, there is no real need for forking/bifurcation of the platform -- provided the authentication/authorisation processes for both licence and login remain in harmony, it is way preferable to have a single source code base
• It does require, of course, that new functionality be completely compatible with the (now-still-usable) licences -- that should be minimal overhead, given the scale of the transformation already put in place; and the prior version code is all there still to leverage for that ... and a licence is, after all, just a string of characters to identify a particular entity -- how it works under the covers might change dramatically to accommodate future functionality, but for the user it is simply "my licence"
• Forking/bifurcation of the platform should be a last resort -- if that's what it takes to achieve the above, then so be it ... but inevitably, divergence causes longer-term support issues; and those who have been with NinjaTrader for any significant time know that making progress in even a single platform can be a tortuous exercise
• Better to go down the path outlined above to make a good outcome for those who have supported NinjaTrader for anything from months to years to a couple of decades
• And I expect Vendors will be pleased with such an approach as it allows continuity for their customers, all of whom are also NinjaTrader customers

It is to be hoped that NinjaTrader Management is willing to listen to its users in this respect and find a path forward that satisfies the installed user base and is maintainable by Development and Support.

Thanks.

[NinjaTrader_RyanS]

Hello,

R28 was previously a 'placeholder' title/reference while 8.1 was being developed, but all future/pending fixes and improvements will be made to NinjaTrader Desktop (8.1) going forward.

For elaboration on the licensing and sign on issue, there is no current plan to disable or stop support of our License Key management for the time being, but we will be encouraging users to upgrade to the new NinjaTrader Desktop as we promote and support this path going forward.

We understand and have acknowledged the pushback and inconvenience this causes for signing on each time if performing tests that require multiple restarts and are looking to streamline this as much as possible. With that said, this is a industry standard security measure that may be unavoidable to eliminate completely. A possible solution may be to use a desktop password manager or alternate solution.

To emphasize, there is still dedicated teams and projects specific to NinjaTrader Desktop going forward and we will continue to pour resources into this product to continuously improve it as best we can for all users. The addition of web/mobile platforms should not 'de-prioritize' any of the fixes or improvements being considered for NT Desktop.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

[Leeroy_Jenkins]

A possible solution may be to use a desktop password manager or alternate solution.

Autohotkey script on desktop next to NT shortcut is gonna give so much security for sure

You've made a problem and now putting a burden on customers.

[bltdavid]

R28 was previously a 'placeholder' title/reference while 8.1 was being developed, but all future/pending fixes and improvements will be made to NinjaTrader Desktop (8.1) going forward.

(I understand about the placeholder thing ... it happens)

But please hear me out.

So, some fix for an adapter comes along, which requires changes
in the NT code base, and a new 8.1.x.x release has those changes.

But, let's say the adapter company has decreed that connections
using the old adapter will no longer be accepted -- only connections
with the new changes will be accepted.

Is NinjaTrader going to update the code in the latest '8.0' release
so those users refusing to upgrade aren't left behind?

I mean, that would be a pretty despicable way to force people to
upgrade to this new '8.1' branch -- imagine, if all of a sudden, all
Rithmic and/or CQG-based connections were to stop working for
people on the '8.0' code base ... all due to some massive security
fix that only the '8.1' branch got updated with ...

That, I think, would cause quite the panic, and a rebellion.

See my point?

Why can't NT mgmt be pro-active and help the massive '8.0' user
base feel safe and secure with future important fixes?

Because they ... I dunno ... don't care to?

[jeronymite]

Well said, bltdavid.

I would also re-iterate that going forward, the single-most grievous impediment to a single source code stream, needed for all the right reasons, is the currently mandatory login process. Eliminate that roadblock by making it optional with all the caveats that implies, and there should be no reason to have divergent code streams, which should be avoided if possible.

This is not a programming issue. The code can be made to do this fairly easily, I would think. This is a policy issue that needs due consideration by NinjaTrader Management, taking the very significant installed base views into account.

Thanks.

[QuantKey_Bruce]

If we can get a checkbox to "keep me signed in" until explicitly signed out I think all of this is made moot.

Remember, on account.ninjatrader.com everyone has their username and password stored in Chrome (or its equivalent) so it's not like they're having to type them in everytime anyway. The desktop application should behave the same way - except it shouldn't even stop at the prompt there and should continue to load up if they've chosen to "remember me" or stay signed in, until they explicitly sign out.

Forking the code base and having to back-port some hypothetical future security fix sounds like something that isn't really going to happen - if this is some hypothetical future fix that is a year or two down the road, there is essentially no chance that 8.0 will be patched from what public statements have been made so far. So, the best thing that could happen here is just to fully fix the sign-in screen.

[bltdavid]

Yep, I totally agree with you guys!

jeronymite and QuantKey_Bruce -- your both reading my mind.

The best way forward is to fix the sign-on issue in NinjaTrader Desktop.

This needs to be 100% completely optional.

Some kind of 'Remember Me' checkbox, with no time expiration, is the
only real solution here.

-=o=-

Why not store the sign-on dialog credentials into the Config.xml file?
I mean, you're already doing this with email and connection passwords.

After those sign-on credentials are saved, you would use those saved
credentials to do a 'silent login', just like you do today when you do a
silent license key check. So, what's the problem?

I don't understand why NT mgmt is resisting this is so hard.

In fact, NT support/mgmt resistance is really annoying, and is pure b/s.

Why?
I'll tell you why.

The product has a long established history of doing exactly what the users
are now begging NT mgmt to keep doing -- the precedent already exists!

I mean, think about it.

There is a long established precedent in the NinjaTrader product for
no forced repetitive password entry.

After you setup your CQG or Rithmic or IB or TDA connection, have
you ever had to re-enter that password again, involuntarily? Rarely,
and I mean very rare.

Who created that precedent?

Who trained the entire NT user community to never have to type a
password to start the NT application?

Who trained us to never involuntarily re-enter a password when
connecting to our brokerage accounts?

Why, NT mgmt, of course!

Now, after all these years, NT mgmt silently and secretly and deceptively
decrees that passwords will now always be entered in the new release.

Didn't NT mgmt expect extreme vociferous pushback on this?

Is this why they ignored the superuser and vendor community with little
to no advance notice, and absolutely zero access to a pre-release build?

You trained us by past precedent.

Stop acting like you're so surprised that we're so pissed off.

Stop acting like the reason this sign-on is mandatory is 'for security'.

By prior acts, by NT's own historical precedent, it's pretty easy to poke
holes in this new 'for security' mandate -- I mean, that security argument
ship sailed a long time ago ...

Just my 2˘.

[bltdavid]

If we can get a checkbox to "keep me signed in" until explicitly signed out I think all of this is made moot.

Exactly!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

A huge amount of precedent exists on the side of the users,
this 'keep me signed in' feature should be a 100% no-brainer
for all of NT mgmt.

Quite simply, it solves a lot of headaches.

[backtester831]

For elaboration on the licensing and sign on issue, there is no current plan to disable or stop support of our License Key management for the time being, but we will be encouraging users to upgrade to the new NinjaTrader Desktop as we promote and support this path going forward.

The problem isn't even so much the inconvenience, and that is a problem too, but it's that you're blocking access to NinjaTrader Continuum API connection behind your new login for license key management.

A desktop password manager doesn't do anything for this problem.

2 days ago, NinjaTrader desktop 8.1 couldn't be used for a very extended period of time during prime trading hours after the Fed speech.

These outages aren't that rare. You had another one on Feb 24th, multiple in Jan, and plenty before that as well, as evidence by the Tradovate community forum. The Feb 24th outage was right around market open, and if NT 8.1 was released a few weeks earlier, everyone on the new NinjaTrader Desktop 8.1 wouldn't have been able to log in for market open trading on Feb 24th. Or worse, wouldn't be able to manage their live positions.

By the way, I called your Emergency trade desk multiple times on March 7th, and it just rang for 4 minutes and then went to voicemail, and all because the license key was "streamlined for better user experience". Honestly I think the real reason it was done was to get the contact info of everyone using NinjaTrader, for example there were likely thousands of prop firm Rithmic users that you didn't have any relationships with, and forcing the new login only makes sense as a way to get their info to pitch NT brokerage accounts, because the new login certainly does nothing for bettering the user experience.

Stopping development on 8.0.27 and only releasing new updates on 8.1 is really awful because of the new risk of your license management login going offline. And it's not a hypothetical risk, it happened just 2 days ago on March 7th, Feb 24th, multiple dates in Jan, etc.

See this post regarding the March 7th outage: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threa...3#post-5776364

[Leeroy_Jenkins]

But, let's say the adapter company has decreed that connections
using the old adapter will no longer be accepted -- only connections
with the new changes will be accepted.

Does NT7 use the same old adapter? If so NT7 also stops working alongside NT8.0.XX. It seems they're not planing to do this at least in the near future.

[torento]

NT8 has been nothing but a pain in the .... from day 1, over and over and over again.
Bring back a more simple updated version of NT7 for all of us long time users

Forget all the bells and whistles designed to capture the "Beginner Trader" market share & begin working on something of a more Professional grade, the longer NT is in business I feel the more the platform is going down hill in the wrong direction.

I like using the platform because it's easy to use and aesthetically pleasing but otherwise it's a shambles, the amount of hours I've spent dealing with and troubleshooting issues is crazy and it's consistent...

It seems like NT is all about capturing the New Beginner Trader rather that servicing the traders it already has, the new website says it all, the new Baby Milestones in the New Account management, come on NT.

There's so much potential but you persist with this Swiss Cheese platform full of holes, to invested now to change I guess.

All one has to do is look at the forum to see there's a problem with the platform, I don't see any threads which are not related to problems the whole forum is one big problem, haven't you guys at NT had enough of dealing with this? Do you have the sense enough to change? Obviously Not.

[brucerobinson]

A little humour for the day…..

I ran this through my proprietary NinjaSpeak translator (internal project code-name ‘forked-tongue’):
”there is no current plan to disable or stop support of our License Key management for the time being, but we will be encouraging users to upgrade to the new NinjaTrader Desktop as we promote and support this path going forward.“

This is what it returned:
”I see you are currently using an older version of NinjaTrader. You must upgrade to the latest version of NinjaTrader v8.1.1.146. Unfortunately we are unable to offer Support for versions other than the latest.
Thank you for using NinjaTrader”

Clearly NinjaTrader and I have very different interpretations of the meaning of ‘encouraging’ - on many levels! Hehe.

Still on v26.0. UnSupported

[jeronymite]

Whilst I can understand some of the angst torento expresses, I would not want to see simply a more modern incarnation of NT7 as the next iteration of NT. NT8, for all its faults (and there are many, not just in the recent 8.1 release), is still moving in the direction of a professional platform, albeit often frustratingly slowly, at times poorly executed, and not infrequently with barely passing regard for trader/customer feedback. Like torento, sometimes it feels like one spends more time trying to debug the platform and its "quirks" rather than actually constructively taking advantage of it for trading. To say nothing of the major business processes and policies that can needlessly frustrate customers and squander goodwill.

Despite all the frustrations, from a technology perspective, there are things that NT8 offers that make it progress in the right direction. Obviously, it's subjective and depends on what you want. As a developer of trading software, the move to WPF, whilst initially painful, makes for better user interfaces, and that means better user experience is possible. Again, it's in the execution as to whether or not that potential is fully realised. Great tools cannot overcome design and execution deficiencies. But the introduction of extensive configurable information for Instruments, Trading Hours, Commissions, Risks, etc is starting to make an environment where market-related contexts can be explored more fully, and there is less need to go hunting to find basic market parameters such as trading hours for individual exchanges and instruments.

As a programmable trading environment, it really is impressive; again, despite all the "Swiss cheese". The ability to design and build powerful AddOns is a major advance over NT7. Of course, not everyone wants to build Strategies, Indicators or AddOns. But they are there, and it's a sure bet that many people use someone else's Strategies, Indicators or AddOns that would not otherwise have been as they are if NT7 were still the platform. Many people have contributed extraordinary examples of free and open-source tools for NT8 users. Just one example that typifies this is the Free OrderFlow Ladder (SuperDOM column) from gemify. This would have been impossible in NT7. There are many others too. And even though the management of various code examples and NT Ecosystem contributions provided by NT Support could be much improved, the number of those code examples and contributions to the Ecosystem is still admirable.

The problems NinjaTrader customers see with NT8 would seem to be related to execution more than anything. Execution has a huge number of moving parts, and it is non-trivial to do really well. But that's what good management is all about -- making all those parts come together harmoniously and consistently. Major amongst those is being truly and genuinely customer-centric. That's not as easily defined as it may seem. It is more easily measured by the responses of customers to the business activities. On that scale, execution has not been nearly as good as NinjaTrader customers deserve.

It's astonishing how loyal NinjaTrader customers are, even when regular railing about things that are still not fixed after years of asking (quite literally). NinjaTrader customers recognise the still untapped potential of the Desktop platform. Yet NinjaTrader management seems to find it hard to embrace the collective experience of its most valuable (external) asset -- its customers. There will always be new traders who don't initially know their ask from their bid. But they learn and they grow as traders and through that experience develop insights that should be respected. Every trader started out that way, and for NinjaTrader customers who are years and, in many cases, decades into their journey as traders, and are seasoned trading software users and developers, it behoves NinjaTrader to listen, respect and engage far more constructively and openly. Treating customers as "partners" more than "parties" can have major advantages all round. That's the big transformation that has yet to occur and will matter most, I think.

Thanks.