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IDE functionality
Erik Thorson
edited

Im new to quantopian and have a couple questions about the development environment. Although im very impressed with the potential of this tool/community, id like to have a little more flexibility when developing.

Is it possible to add your own classes and reuse them across algorithms? This would be very helpful for adding custom indicators.

Can I add additional files or tabs to the IDE to better separate my code?

Can i use the functionality that you have developed outside of your website (locally for example) through an api or something along these lines?

Thank you.

2 responses
Grant Kiehne

Welcome Erik,

In ressponse:

Is it possible to add your own classes and reuse them across algorithms?

To re-use code, you need to copy-and-paste. There is no way to import your own custom modules, or set up a MATLAB-like search path.

Can I add additional files or tabs to the IDE to better separate my code?

No.

Can i use the functionality that you have developed outside of your website (locally for example) through an api or something along these lines?

Kinda sorta. My understanding is that the Quantopian Research Environment (or whatever it is formally called) will eventually be rolled out to all users as a free offering. It'll be more flexible. There is also zipline (https://github.com/quantopian/zipline), which can be used if you are willing to provide your own data. But there is no separate API for trading through a broker--only the browser-based backtester and trading interface is available.

I haven't used it, but I gather that some Quantopian users have applied zipline extensively, which would allow you to customize your development environment. Note:

Discussion of the project is held at the Google Group, [email protected], https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/zipline.

Grant

Dan Dunn

Erik - make sure you take the debugger out for a spin. It's quite powerful.

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The material on this website is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy, or a recommendation or endorsement for any security or strategy, nor does it constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services by Quantopian.

In addition, the material offers no opinion with respect to the suitability of any security or specific investment. No information contained herein should be regarded as a suggestion to engage in or refrain from any investment-related course of action as none of Quantopian nor any of its affiliates is undertaking to provide investment advice, act as an adviser to any plan or entity subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended, individual retirement account or individual retirement annuity, or give advice in a fiduciary capacity with respect to the materials presented herein. If you are an individual retirement or other investor, contact your financial advisor or other fiduciary unrelated to Quantopian about whether any given investment idea, strategy, product or service described herein may be appropriate for your circumstances. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Quantopian makes no guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of the views expressed in the website. The views are subject to change, and may have become unreliable for various reasons, including changes in market conditions or economic circumstances.