Under Construction …

Are your frustrated trying to setup an automated streaming API (e.g.: perhaps wanting to do automated trading)?

Maybe you are trying just to get streaming data (e.g.: Level I or Level II data) or producing some financial API for a major corporation?

How many times have you gone to well known financial/brokerage firms, only to find they do not have a trading API?

OR if they do, their REST / JSON trading API documentation is so poor, in that it is scattered over many web pages, that you spend forever to collect the pieces?

• Why don’t they have one easily downloadable JSON file, that contains self references to a common/base library of JSON types?

Or their REST API is so incomplete, with data types half defined? Or that identical JSON data types have completely different names and they don’t use a common repository of JSON structures?

• Please somebody teach the JSON designers/programmers what a #ref is and this can radically organize their JSON code and

  • Radically simplify their design as it facilitates commonly used JSON structures to be put into one place within the self referencing JSON architecture file

    • with a common name for each of these commonly used JSON structures, so that everyone can reuse these types and stop re-inventing the wheel,

      • thus saving lots of MONEY in development and testing costs!

  • And which use of #ref allows for properly segregation of JSON structures into their correct branches of a JSON hierarchical tree !

    • (e.g.: makes the whole thing take on the flavor of an Object Oriented design, doesn’t it?)

And wouldn’t it be nice if you could use any common programming language that you are familiar with with any API and not be forced into making adapter code just to get an API to work?

And according to research, socket based (i.e.: socket variants such as WebSockets) APIs are substantially faster than using all that http/ REST overhead code. See links below:

• https://blog.feathersjs.com/http-vs-websockets-a-performance-comparison-da2533f13a77

• https://www.educba.com/websocket-vs-rest/

And, yes, it is acknowledged that although using a binary/socket API does result in a substantially faster communication stream,

• that available skill-sets of staff newly out of college may have difficulty in supporting them and also it is known that the knowledge-base goes out the door with employee turn-over,

• and therefore REST APIs are easier to understand and maintain over time than their binary streaming (socket layer) counterparts.

• But ***WHAT IF*** that problem was resolved via a simple Software Architectural tool like Altova XMLSpy (URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLSpy)?

Well, that’s the problem defined and yes I’m frustrated too.

So, working to solve these and related problems.

Of course, this may take a little while….

To download a JSON file that is a good example of a well defined REST API in a single file that is publicly available, just click the [Download] button on this link => TradeStation's Trading API - OpenAPI specification

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