[BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

[Asokan Pichai]

On 26 April 2010 16:44, Dhananjay Nene <dhananjay.nene at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai <
> abpillai at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Dhananjay Nene <dhananjay.nene at gmail.com
>> >wrote:
>>
>> > On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:18 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang <sirtaj at sirtaj.net
>> > >wrote:
>>
>> > This is not a deal-breaker of course, and this decision to use Python is
>> a
>> > > sensible, pragmatic one (lots of python programmers around,
>> > > financial/statistical libraries are available and mature etc) but IMHO
>> a
>> > > more declarative language would have been nicer from a provability
>> > > standpoint. Being able to write programs that reason about the
>> contracts
>> > is
>> > > very important and trying to do it for a general purpose language like
>> > > python will be difficult.
>> > >
>> >
>> > I think a DSL based contract (or more precisely waterfall specification)
>> > may
>> > be more concise and self descriptive. But that would require a definition
>> > of
>> > a new language grammar.  However reasoning about the contracts is not in
>> > the
>> > scope of the SEC specification. The scope is (in my understanding) a
>> clear
>> > communication of the how the waterfall implications are worked out (eg.
>> how
>> > much does each stakeholder get paid and what are the conditions under
>> which
>> > that gets decided) and at least in terms of standard programming
>> languages
>> > Python does pretty well.
>> >
>>
>> Precisely. The program that SEC mentions is a "waterfall program" which
>> calculates which investor gets paid first, second etc, when and how much
>> etc
>>
>> in monetizing a commercial mortgage backed security asset. I read
>> through the relevant sections of the SEC PDF and this does not look
>> like it needs a DSL contract but more of routine programming.
>>
>
> Apologies at persisting in this .. but I do think it is a very
> unconventional usecase for programs to be used as specifications.
>
I understood the Python program as a means to play around with asset
 allocations to try and figure out what would be alternative scenarios
and not as spec.

Re_reading what I wrote, it _is_ a spec :-$ A spec of what is supposed
to happen. Well, Python as executable spec!

[SNIPPED]
-- 
Asokan Pichai
*-------------------*
We will find a way. Or, make one. (Hannibal)