subject:"Re\: \[BangPypers\] Wall street may embrace Python"

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:
 SEC has found a way to set right those marauding
 bankers on Wall street by considering the use
 of programming languages to specify legal requirements.
 And the language of choice ? - Python!

 http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/19/2114251/SEC-Proposes-Wall-Street-Transparency-Via-Python

 If this becomes law, then I suppose there will be
 lot of Python programmer openings in wall street and
 could also create Python jobs in the services sector
 here once these requirements gets outsourced (which
 they will). Folks, prepare your CVs! :-)[..]

Apart from the job creation and stuff, it'd be an interesting project
to make a programming language that's used to specify legal
requirements. If it takes off, the entire 'business rules' setup I
imagine will be affected.




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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Noufal Ibrahim nou...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
 abpil...@gmail.com wrote:
  SEC has found a way to set right those marauding
  bankers on Wall street by considering the use
  of programming languages to specify legal requirements.
  And the language of choice ? - Python!
 
 
 http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/19/2114251/SEC-Proposes-Wall-Street-Transparency-Via-Python
 
  If this becomes law, then I suppose there will be
  lot of Python programmer openings in wall street and
  could also create Python jobs in the services sector
  here once these requirements gets outsourced (which
  they will). Folks, prepare your CVs! :-)[..]

 Apart from the job creation and stuff, it'd be an interesting project
 to make a programming language that's used to specify legal
 requirements. If it takes off, the entire 'business rules' setup I
 imagine will be affected.


 If you don't think that as a huge business opportunity, I wonder
 what kind of Python consultant you are ;-)






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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Noufal Ibrahim nou...@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:
SEC has found a way to set right those marauding
bankers on Wall street by considering the use
of programming languages to specify legal requirements.
And the language of choice ? - Python!

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/19/2114251/SEC-Proposes-Wall-Street-Transparency-Via-Python

If this becomes law, then I suppose there will be
lot of Python programmer openings in wall street and
could also create Python jobs in the services sector
here once these requirements gets outsourced (which
they will). Folks, prepare your CVs! :-)[..]

Apart from the job creation and stuff, it'd be an interesting project
to make a programming language that's used to specify legal
requirements. If it takes off, the entire 'business rules' setup I
imagine will be affected.

If you don't think that as a huge business opportunity, I wonder
what kind of Python consultant you are ;-)

Tweeters, please tweet this if you already haven't. Let us drive
some traffic to python dot org which apparently is already
seeing increased traffic since this hit /. (The Slashdot effect maybe ?)

I see this as a good boost for the language's popularity, if nothing
else.

~noufal
http://nibrahim.net.in
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

2010-04-26 Thread Venkatraman S

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai 
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:


  Tweeters, please tweet this if you already haven't. Let us drive
  some traffic to python dot org which apparently is already
  seeing increased traffic since this hit /. (The Slashdot effect maybe ?)

  I see this as a good boost for the language's popularity, if nothing
  else.


Very true. Was just about to say this.
Hope 'django' also gets a suitable boost.

-V-
http://twitter.com/venkasub
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:
[..]
  If you don't think that as a huge business opportunity, I wonder
  what kind of Python consultant you are ;-)[..]

Oh. I do.

It's just that I recently needed to implement a simple business rule
engine http://mail.python.org/pipermail/bangpypers/2009-December/003262.html
and spent some time thinking about how to map the non-technical users
more expressive but less accurate English specification into the more
rigorous but  less flexible programming language specification. This
has some parallels to that.

Legal documents are a little more convenient though since they are
often (in my experience) structured into declaration section (Foo is
Leasor, Bar is Lessee etc.) and then a set of constraints that
establish relationships between the defined entities.

Apart from the $$$ angle, I think there's a lot of interesting
technical stuff going on here as well.


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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Noufal Ibrahim nou...@gmail.com
wrote:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/19/2114251/SEC-Proposes-Wall-Street-Transparency-Via-Python

If this becomes law, then I suppose there will be

Whoa! what becomes law ? From what i can understand it primarily refers to
the preferred mechanism of documenting complex waterfall provisions, in
fiscal projections.

lot of Python programmer openings in wall street and
could also create Python jobs in the services sector
here once these requirements gets outsourced (which
they will). Folks, prepare your CVs! :-)[..]

For what ? Are we getting far too ahead of ourselves. Any ballpark
quantification of lot of Python programmer openings ? This is in the field
of fiscal modeling, not actual business applications (to the extent that
they are often but not necessarily distinct

I don't see a normal business transaction processing runtime getting
influenced particularly. Python is a candidate for replacing what otherwise
is likely to be done through excel spreadsheets and then resummarised using
English.

If you don't think that as a huge business opportunity, I wonder
what kind of Python consultant you are ;-)

Tweeters, please tweet this if you already haven't. Let us drive
some traffic to python dot org which apparently is already
seeing increased traffic since this hit /. (The Slashdot effect maybe ?)

I see this as a good boost for the language's popularity, if nothing
else.

Are we getting way ahead by reading too much into this ?

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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:11 PM, Noufal Ibrahim nou...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
 abpil...@gmail.com wrote:
 [..]
   If you don't think that as a huge business opportunity, I wonder
   what kind of Python consultant you are ;-)[..]

 Oh. I do.

 It's just that I recently needed to implement a simple business rule
 engine
 http://mail.python.org/pipermail/bangpypers/2009-December/003262.html
 and spent some time thinking about how to map the non-technical users
 more expressive but less accurate English specification into the more
 rigorous but  less flexible programming language specification. This
 has some parallels to that.

 Legal documents are a little more convenient though since they are
 often (in my experience) structured into declaration section (Foo is
 Leasor, Bar is Lessee etc.) and then a set of constraints that
 establish relationships between the defined entities.

 Apart from the $$$ angle, I think there's a lot of interesting
 technical stuff going on here as well.

 I am not contesting the above as much as trying to understand where's the
$$$ and whats the interesting technical stuff here ? I haven't seen it yet.

Dhananjay

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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 1:48 PM, Dhananjay Nene
dhananjay.n...@gmail.com wrote:
[..]
 I don't see a normal business transaction processing runtime getting
 influenced particularly. Python is a candidate for replacing what otherwise
 is likely to be done through excel spreadsheets and then resummarised using
 English.[..]

I'm not particularly clued in about the financial markets but once you
specify something in Python, you'll have to have a (restricted)
parser, then tie up the parsed executable structures into the rest of
your application.

I don't expect people to convert in back into English but there will,
at the very least, be a need for Python specific training.


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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

2010-04-26 Thread Asokan Pichai

On 26 April 2010 13:53, Noufal Ibrahim nou...@gmail.com wrote:
[snipped]
 I don't expect people to convert in back into English but there will,
 at the very least, be a need for Python specific training.

This reminded me of something I read: here it is

http://www.ymeme.com/will-hartungs-guerilla-lisp-opus.html



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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 1:48 PM, Dhananjay Nene dhananjay.n...@gmail.comwrote:

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Noufal Ibrahim nou...@gmail.com
wrote:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/19/2114251/SEC-Proposes-Wall-Street-Transparency-Via-Python

If this becomes law, then I suppose there will be

Whoa! what becomes law ? From what i can understand it primarily refers to
the preferred mechanism of documenting complex waterfall provisions, in
fiscal projections.

For what ? Are we getting far too ahead of ourselves. Any ballpark
quantification of lot of Python programmer openings ? This is in the
field
of fiscal modeling, not actual business applications (to the extent that
they are often but not necessarily distinct

That was a tongue-in-cheek response. You didn't see the smiley
at the end ? Btw, we are too early to guess-estimate any Python
programmer openings, but I was just having some fun when I wrote
about it. Surely, if SEC finally goes ahead and proposes Python
as its primary language of choice for such models, it doesn't
need much guess work to see that there will be demands for
people with talent in business rules and Python.

If you don't think that as a huge business opportunity, I wonder
what kind of Python consultant you are ;-)

Tweeters, please tweet this if you already haven't. Let us drive
some traffic to python dot org which apparently is already
seeing increased traffic since this hit /. (The Slashdot effect maybe
?)

I see this as a good boost for the language's popularity, if nothing
else.

Are we getting way ahead by reading too much into this ?

Yeah, maybe we are. But surely if you can't see the humour in
trying to use an open source language in specifying the
requirements of what was mostly very difficult to understand
requirements (which enabled these bankers to sell toxic assets
packaging them into very attractive market instruments), then
so be it.

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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Noufal Ibrahim nou...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 1:48 PM, Dhananjay Nene
 dhananjay.n...@gmail.com wrote:
 [..]
  I don't see a normal business transaction processing runtime getting
  influenced particularly. Python is a candidate for replacing what
 otherwise
  is likely to be done through excel spreadsheets and then resummarised
 using
  English.[..]

 I'm not particularly clued in about the financial markets but once you
 specify something in Python, you'll have to have a (restricted)
 parser, then tie up the parsed executable structures into the rest of
 your application.


I think I understand what this is for. Let me give you an example. In a
grossly oversimplified scenario, lets say you borrow 1000 Rs. from Bank A at
10% and 2000 Rs. Bank B at 15% with the caveat that when you repay it back
you will first always repay Bank A (if you made enough money to do so) and
then you will repay Bank B (if you have anything left over). Now you want to
file a statement with SEBI (our local SEC) indicating your future cashflows.
Then you need to make it apparent and clear how and under what conditions
what monies will go to bank A and B. This description of your projected
fiscals will go into your SEC filings usually in English Legalese. This will
include what if you lose 500 rs, make no money, make 500, make 1500, make
2500 etc. (since it will influence each debt holder very differently).

The problem is the simple situation above gets terribly complex with more
parties (and usually equity players not just debtors in the picture). That
time the filing document which is a legal document can get really complex
and error prone.

What is being talked about here is that the filing documents will have parts
of section in Python instead of English. The likely time the program will be
run is when you are evaluating whether to invest in or get into other
business relationships with the company which filed these documents. The
python program can help you do your own what if analysis. (My conjecture is
that someone will ask a python developer to convert the python program into
an excel spreadsheet at this stage :) and conduct some what if analysis if
required.)

I do not see the candidate field of use for parser or to use this into some
other program at this stage (unless I am just invisible to the opportunities
here).


 I don't expect people to convert in back into English but there will,
 at the very least, be a need for Python specific training.

 To a certain extent yes - but may not be such a big deal.



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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 1:48 PM, Dhananjay Nene 
 dhananjay.n...@gmail.comwrote:



 Whoa! what becomes law ? From what i can understand it primarily refers to
 the preferred mechanism of documenting complex waterfall provisions, in
 fiscal projections.



I downloaded the PDF from the SEC web-site and here are the
relevant lines from it.

QUOTE
The asset-level information would be provided according to proposed
standards and in a tagged data format using eXtensible Markup Language
(XML). In addition, we are proposing to require, along with the prospectus
filing, the filing of a computer program of the contractual cash flow
provisions expressed as downloadable source code in Python, a commonly used
open source interpretive programming language.
/QUOTE

Interesting to see that they want to use open technologies
for this.

The word law was used very  leniently. Come on, we are not lawyers
 here, give me a break and don't hang on to every word. If you
 don't like it, read it as proposal or specification, which it is.



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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai 
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:

  On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 1:48 PM, Dhananjay Nene 
 dhananjay.n...@gmail.comwrote:
 
 
 
  Whoa! what becomes law ? From what i can understand it primarily refers
 to
  the preferred mechanism of documenting complex waterfall provisions, in
  fiscal projections.
 
 

 I downloaded the PDF from the SEC web-site and here are the
 relevant lines from it.


 The word law was used very  leniently. Come on, we are not lawyers
  here, give me a break and don't hang on to every word. If you
  don't like it, read it as proposal or specification, which it is.


Didn't mean to convey that sentiment of hanging onto the words. There's some
good stuff of academic interest here. . Was essentially trying to
communicate that I don't know if its such a important event at least from
the commercial prospects perspectives of python development. That was the
essence of my thoughts.


 
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

2010-04-26 Thread Sirtaj Singh Kang



On 26-Apr-10, at 2:25 PM, Dhananjay Nene wrote:
[snip]
I do see one strong plus here for Python. That is a very natural  
language
for expression (as in being one of the most readable programming  
languages

for non programmers) without resorting to any specific DSLs etc.


On the contrary, I think treating python as a DSL host (as some are  
implying here) is not such a great idea. In my experience the language  
is not so good at allowing small languages to be embedded without  
resorting to lisp-like nested lists/tuples.  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 over time once smart contract research becomes more mature  
(there are already lots of research papers available) we'll see more  
declarative languages being used for this instead, with python  
becoming the de-facto support language to build tools around them.


Meanwhile, I'll repeat something I say far too much but anyway: domain  
knowledge is just as important as programming chops. Folks who want to  
get in on the ground floor with these kinds of applications of python  
should start learning the vocabulary and process flows of finance ASAP.


-Taj.
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:18 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@sirtaj.netwrote:


 On 26-Apr-10, at 2:25 PM, Dhananjay Nene wrote:
 [snip]

  I do see one strong plus here for Python. That is a very natural language

 for expression (as in being one of the most readable programming languages
 for non programmers) without resorting to any specific DSLs etc.


 On the contrary, I think treating python as a DSL host (as some are
 implying here) is not such a great idea.


Not sure how it got misunderstood but I meant python is easily
understandable without resorting to DSLs etc. What I specifically meant to
state is that perhaps it might be easier to write code which ie easier to
understand than python - but that is more likely to involve a DSL rather
than just a natural programming language.


 In my experience the language is not so good at allowing small languages to
 be embedded without resorting to lisp-like nested lists/tuples.


I agree. Python is not the first language of choice for writing internal
DSLs.

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.



 I think over time once smart contract research becomes more mature (there
 are already lots of research papers available) we'll see more declarative
 languages being used for this instead, with python becoming the de-facto
 support language to build tools around them.

 Meanwhile, I'll repeat something I say far too much but anyway: domain
 knowledge is just as important as programming chops. Folks who want to get
 in on the ground floor with these kinds of applications of python should
 start learning the vocabulary and process flows of finance ASAP.

 -Taj.



Dhananjay

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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Dhananjay Nene dhananjay.n...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:18 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@sirtaj.netwrote:


  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.


 To further clarify what I meant when I said reasoning was further what if
analysis. I anticipate eventually that will find its way into excel or
something else that end users are most comfortable with.


 Dhananjay


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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Dhananjay Nene dhananjay.n...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:18 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@sirtaj.net
 wrote:

 
  On 26-Apr-10, at 2:25 PM, Dhananjay Nene wrote:
  [snip]
 
   I do see one strong plus here for Python. That is a very natural
 language
 
  for expression (as in being one of the most readable programming
 languages
  for non programmers) without resorting to any specific DSLs etc.
 
 
  On the contrary, I think treating python as a DSL host (as some are
  implying here) is not such a great idea.


 Not sure how it got misunderstood but I meant python is easily
 understandable without resorting to DSLs etc. What I specifically meant
 to
 state is that perhaps it might be easier to write code which ie easier to
 understand than python - but that is more likely to involve a DSL rather
 than just a natural programming language.


  In my experience the language is not so good at allowing small languages
 to
  be embedded without resorting to lisp-like nested lists/tuples.


 I agree. Python is not the first language of choice for writing internal
 DSLs.

 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.





 
  I think over time once smart contract research becomes more mature (there
  are already lots of research papers available) we'll see more declarative
  languages being used for this instead, with python becoming the de-facto
  support language to build tools around them.
 
  Meanwhile, I'll repeat something I say far too much but anyway: domain
  knowledge is just as important as programming chops. Folks who want to
 get
  in on the ground floor with these kinds of applications of python should
  start learning the vocabulary and process flows of finance ASAP.


+1. Btw, I am not sure if the requirements will get diluted to Excel
etc later since the filing is very clear on open source technologies
and mentions Python exactly 15 times. The requirements seem
to be very clear on an open source, interpreted programming language
which is unlike a closd, binary executable machine program.


 
  -Taj.



 Dhananjay

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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

2010-04-26 Thread Sirtaj Singh Kang



On 26-Apr-10, at 3:46 PM, Dhananjay Nene wrote:
[snip]


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.


Well the question I'm asking is, what are the implicit qualifications  
of the humans who are going to interpret these specifications? I see  
two profiles:


1) Financial, actuarial and legal experts with some programming  
experience.

2) Programming experts with financial, actuarial and legal experience.

While there are people who fit both these profiles, there is a reason  
they get paid high-six figure USD salaries. Python alone is fine, but  
consider bog-standard recurring financial patterns like compound  
interest and graduated tax brackets. These imply functions that will  
occur often in these specifications, further implying (de- 
facto-)standard libraries containing highly domain-specific financial  
routines will be written. These are already embedded proto-DSLs! So  
you're not side-stepping DSLs by using python, only hiding them in  
plain sight. But you are not necessarily gaining the benefits of using  
an independent, well-specified declarative grammar the primary one  
being that you are possibly burdening non-programmers with general  
purpose programming constructs that are not their primary focus. There  
is a reason so many finance guys use R and (gah!) Excel to do their  
financial modelling - they are not interested in programming.


Anyhow I'll stop here, I understand that the SEC requires only a  
subset of what I'm talking about, but the scope for these kinds of  
agreements goes well past the SEC and is something worth studying and  
implementing in its own right for fun and profit.


-Taj.
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai 
abpil...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Dhananjay Nene dhananjay.n...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:18 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@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.

The scenario here is that the program (as in the python code) is the means
of communication  - it is *not necessarily* a runtime construct.
Organisation A models its understanding of the various fiscal implications
and publishes as a appendix of python code in a document. This document is
filed with SEC and then finds its way to Organisation B. In a very strange
situation here the code is the specification of understanding and replaces
english legalese as a specification of understanding.


   I think over time once smart contract research becomes more mature
 (there
   are already lots of research papers available) we'll see more
 declarative
   languages being used for this instead, with python becoming the
 de-facto
   support language to build tools around them.
  
   Meanwhile, I'll repeat something I say far too much but anyway: domain
   knowledge is just as important as programming chops. Folks who want to
  get
   in on the ground floor with these kinds of applications of python
 should
   start learning the vocabulary and process flows of finance ASAP.
 

 +1. Btw, I am not sure if the requirements will get diluted to Excel
 etc later since the filing is very clear on open source technologies
 and mentions Python exactly 15 times.


Need not necessarily be excel. If I am a member of Organisation B - I could
use the document in a number of ways. eg.

a. Just run the python program and hopefully it meets my needs.
b. I might call up my python consultant and ask him to convert it into my
preferred format (excel? :)) so that I can do some playing around.
c. I might have a bunch of inhouse six figure earning PhDs who might break
it to pieces and come back with an exciting looking PPT after doing some
deep map-reduce jobs :) or may further use an outsourced developer who may
create a program for me to do some senstivity analysis.

When I say excel - I mean in the preferred format of the user.  For small
users excel is simply the most easiest amenable sensitivity analysis tool.
Python ain't replacing that.

*The key point is python as the host language for specification here is a
far more important aspect than python as the runtime environment to actually
run the code in.  *


 The requirements seem
 to be very clear on an open source, interpreted programming language
 which is unlike a closd, binary executable machine program.


In case of option a above :  Python is merely the host language and is as
good as any so long as a reliable, well understood and trusted runtime is
readily available (which is why I guess it focuses on the openness).
-- 

blog: http://blog.dhananjaynene.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/dnene
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

2010-04-26 Thread Rajeev J Sebastian

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:13 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@sirtaj.net wrote:

 On 26-Apr-10, at 3:46 PM, Dhananjay Nene wrote:
 [snip]

 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.

 Well the question I'm asking is, what are the implicit qualifications of the
 humans who are going to interpret these specifications? I see two profiles:

 1) Financial, actuarial and legal experts with some programming experience.
 2) Programming experts with financial, actuarial and legal experience.

 While there are people who fit both these profiles, there is a reason they
 get paid high-six figure USD salaries. Python alone is fine, but consider
 bog-standard recurring financial patterns like compound interest and
 graduated tax brackets. These imply functions that will occur often in these
 specifications, further implying (de-facto-)standard libraries containing
 highly domain-specific financial routines will be written. These are already
 embedded proto-DSLs! So you're not side-stepping DSLs by using python, only
 hiding them in plain sight. But you are not necessarily gaining the benefits
 of using an independent, well-specified declarative grammar the primary one
 being that you are possibly burdening non-programmers with general purpose
 programming constructs that are not their primary focus. There is a reason
 so many finance guys use R and (gah!) Excel to do their financial modelling
 - they are not interested in programming.

 Anyhow I'll stop here, I understand that the SEC requires only a subset of
 what I'm talking about, but the scope for these kinds of agreements goes
 well past the SEC and is something worth studying and implementing in its
 own right for fun and profit.

With all due respect, I disagree that a DSL is useful for this
purpose. In fact, I would disagree with DSLs in most cases, especially
if its supposed to be used for programming. The reason for this is
that creating a good language is much more harder than creating a
language, and such efforts tend to end up with crappy languages.

As an example, take the CMAKE language (vs something like scons/waf).
As a more specific example, take the way parameters are
declared/passed to procedures/routines/functions in CMAKE vs how they
are declared/passed in python. Python's is much more elegant, flexible
and consistent. In their search for the perfect DSL for building
software, they just made yet another (crappy) programming language.

Regards
Rajeev J Sebastian
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:44 PM, Dhananjay Nene
dhananjay.n...@gmail.com wrote:
[..]
 Apologies at persisting in this .. but I do think it is a very
 unconventional usecase for programs to be used as specifications.

 The scenario here is that the program (as in the python code) is the means
 of communication  - it is *not necessarily* a runtime construct.
 Organisation A models its understanding of the various fiscal implications
 and publishes as a appendix of python code in a document. This document is
 filed with SEC and then finds its way to Organisation B. In a very strange
 situation here the code is the specification of understanding and replaces
 english legalese as a specification of understanding.
[..]

Which is why I feel there is opportunity here.

This is not Python specific. I daresay they chose Python for it's
simple syntax and lack of braces.

However, once you have a specification of a process in precise
executable format, it's possible to do this without involving human
beings that was not possible with an English specification accompanied
by a dude with a laptop and an excel sheet. Admittedly, he's more
comfortable with the latter but if his bread and butter depend on the
former, I think he'd change.

The specification can be used to decide automatically if certain
processes are compliant, it can be used to automatically create
interfaces that allow people to work only within the constraints of
the workflow etc.

Python's introspective nature makes it easy to play with these
specifications to tie it up into the larger machinery of the
organisation and so I think apart from the clarity, there's a lot of
potential for automation and removing clerical jobs.

As for analysis, I'm sure some company will come up with an app that
can automatically read out specifications from the website and present
them in Excel like formats that you can play with.


-- 
~noufal
http://nibrahim.net.in
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Noufal Ibrahim nou...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:44 PM, Dhananjay Nene
 dhananjay.n...@gmail.com wrote:
 [..]
  Apologies at persisting in this .. but I do think it is a very
  unconventional usecase for programs to be used as specifications.


You must be kidding. This is one of the best discussions here
in a while. Thanks for joining the conversation!


 
  The scenario here is that the program (as in the python code) is the
 means
  of communication  - it is *not necessarily* a runtime construct.
  Organisation A models its understanding of the various fiscal
 implications
  and publishes as a appendix of python code in a document. This document
 is
  filed with SEC and then finds its way to Organisation B. In a very
 strange
  situation here the code is the specification of understanding and
 replaces
  english legalese as a specification of understanding.
 [..]

 Which is why I feel there is opportunity here.

 This is not Python specific. I daresay they chose Python for it's
 simple syntax and lack of braces.

 However, once you have a specification of a process in precise
 executable format, it's possible to do this without involving human
 beings that was not possible with an English specification accompanied
 by a dude with a laptop and an excel sheet. Admittedly, he's more
 comfortable with the latter but if his bread and butter depend on the
 former, I think he'd change.

 The specification can be used to decide automatically if certain
 processes are compliant, it can be used to automatically create
 interfaces that allow people to work only within the constraints of
 the workflow etc.

 Python's introspective nature makes it easy to play with these
 specifications to tie it up into the larger machinery of the
 organisation and so I think apart from the clarity, there's a lot of
 potential for automation and removing clerical jobs.

 As for analysis, I'm sure some company will come up with an app that
 can automatically read out specifications from the website and present
 them in Excel like formats that you can play with.


 --
 ~noufal
 http://nibrahim.net.in
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-- 
--Anand
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

2010-04-26 Thread Kenneth Gonsalves

On Monday 26 Apr 2010 4:53:05 pm Noufal Ibrahim wrote:
 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:44 PM, Dhananjay Nene
 dhananjay.n...@gmail.com wrote:
 [..]
 
  Apologies at persisting in this .. but I do think it is a very
  unconventional usecase for programs to be used as specifications.
 

this thread is very interesting - but are you people sure that the original 
article in question is not a joke? Or have you all read that 667 page pdf in 
which allegedly python is mentioned only on page 1?
-- 
regards
Kenneth Gonsalves
Senior Associate
NRC-FOSS
http://certificate.nrcfoss.au-kbc.org.in
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

2010-04-26 Thread Rajeev J Sebastian

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@sirtaj.net wrote:

 On 26-Apr-10, at 4:47 PM, Rajeev J Sebastian wrote:
 [snip]

 With all due respect, I disagree that a DSL is useful for this
 purpose. In fact, I would disagree with DSLs in most cases, especially
 if its supposed to be used for programming. The reason for this is
 that creating a good language is much more harder than creating a
 language, and such efforts tend to end up with crappy languages.


 Your concern is valid, but I think you are underestimating the amount of
 effort already being put into creating platform-neutral DSLs for business,
 law and finance.

I'm not underestimating it at all ... just ranting that it does happen
as often as it does, when it shouldn't :P I'm very happy that the SEC
will/may mandate the use of Python for this.

Regards
Rajeev J Sebastian
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@sirtaj.netwrote:


 On 26-Apr-10, at 4:47 PM, Rajeev J Sebastian wrote:
 [snip]

  With all due respect, I disagree that a DSL is useful for this
 purpose. In fact, I would disagree with DSLs in most cases, especially
 if its supposed to be used for programming. The reason for this is
 that creating a good language is much more harder than creating a
 language, and such efforts tend to end up with crappy languages.


 Your concern is valid, but I think you are underestimating the amount of
 effort already being put into creating platform-neutral DSLs for business,
 law and finance. Hint: an XML schema is a declarative specification of a
 DSL, albeit one with terrible, human-antagonistic syntax. Even the SEC
 document contains such a thing already, as Anand quoted in an earlier email
 in this thread.

[..]


 What all these share in common is lack of human-friendly concrete syntax.
 That is the real problem to be solved, but it remains to be seen who will
 solve it and whether the vendors of eye-wateringly expensive middleware have
 the motivation to do so.

 -Taj.


I would agree with Rajeev except to the extent of a minor nuancing of his
statement.  -  I disagree that a DSL is
strikeoutuseful/strikeoutinsertpolitically practical/insert for this
purpose.

Taj, the main issue isn't whether standardisation necessary for DSLs is
feasible - but the sheer amount of effort, time, political bickerings, and
heat that accompanies it. If one uses python we save that entire diversion
which if carried to its natural conclusion would be useful, but is just too
expensive to carry to its natural conclusion.

Moreover, lets say next time one wants to use a precise semantics for
something thats not related to waterfall implications - the process is
started all over again. Each time. Thats what agreeing on python saves,
despite the fact that it may not be as reflective of the underlying domain
and therefore as natural in its communication as a python program.

I think the organisations which publish or consume such fiscal modeling
constructs could encourage investigation of whether a DSL is better for
internal communication - but agreeing upon a DSL for universal (ie. subject
to the universe addressed by SEC) consistency (which is what SEC filings are
for) is likely to be far more painful than any benefits it might reap.

- Dhananjay


-- 

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twitter: http://twitter.com/dnene
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 5:35 PM, Dhananjay Nene
dhananjay.n...@gmail.com wrote:
[..]
 And FWIW - no, I didn't read the 667 page PDF :)

Given that it's a /. link, it's cultural to not RTFA and just
pontificate about it (especially if it's a 667 page pdf). :)

-- 
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

2010-04-26 Thread Sirtaj Singh Kang



On 26-Apr-10, at 5:30 PM, Dhananjay Nene wrote:
[snip]
Taj, the main issue isn't whether standardisation necessary for DSLs  
is
feasible - but the sheer amount of effort, time, political  
bickerings, and
heat that accompanies it. If one uses python we save that entire  
diversion
which if carried to its natural conclusion would be useful, but is  
just too

expensive to carry to its natural conclusion.


Oh I agree completely; as I wrote in my first response to this thread,  
this is a pragmatic solution that goes part of the way to the ideal. A  
halfway solution that actually gets used is better than a perfect one  
that never leaves the standards body. A similar situation that I was  
discussing recently is the credit card secure code solution that was  
adopted surprisingly smoothly - it's not a great solution but the  
ideal mechanism would have never been adopted.


Still, it helps to be prepared for the eventuality of folks wanting  
more than these waterfall programs for exchange of financial  
contracts. When it happens, the prepared people are going to be ahead,  
like all the folks who patiently waited all this time for their  
favourite FP languages to become relevant. ;)


-Taj.
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python

2010-04-26 Thread Asokan Pichai

On 26 April 2010 16:44, Dhananjay Nene dhananjay.n...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Anand Balachandran Pillai 
 abpil...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Dhananjay Nene dhananjay.n...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 3:18 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@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)
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Re: [BangPypers] Wall street may embrace Python