Introduction to AmiBroker

Introduction to AmiBroker is in print and shipping daily.

The book discusses the installation and use of the AmiBroker trading system development platform.
It is a tutorial, introduction, and reference.

The Table of Contents, Preface, Index, and the Installation chapter of the book, exactly as they appear in the book in print, have been posted to the site’s Book menu. These will give a good idea of what the book is about, and whether it is what you are looking for.
And the Installation chapter is good information whether you buy the book or not.

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nooby123

in January 16th, 2012 @ 17:08

Is there an ETA on the Advanced AmiBroker book? Your first 3 books are fantastic, and I am looking forward to the 4th.

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Howard

in January 16th, 2012 @ 18:08

Changes as of AmiBroker Version 5.50

The First Edition of the book was written when AmiBroker was at Version 5.10, and was priced at $39.95. With Version 5.50, which is available as a Release Candidate now (January 2012), several changes have been made to AmiBroker. Some are changes to the user interface, such as the change to the Automatic Analysis dialog boxes. Others are improvements to the computational efficiency, such as multi-threading, and are less apparent.

Most of Introduction to AmiBroker is as applicable to Version 5.50 as it was to Version 5.10. But people who are new to AmiBroker should learn the new Automatic Analysis interface from the start. (The book refers to what is now the “old interface,” which continues to be available from the Analysis pull-down menu.)

We are in the process of evaluating how the changes will affect our books. Some of our options are: a complete rewrite of Introduction to AmiBroker; an addendum describing, page by page, how the new interface is used; a completely new book that is a combination of Introduction to AmiBroker and Advanced AmiBroker; allowing Introduction to AmiBroker to go out of print.

We are working on several projects, of which writing is one. The economics of writing, publishing, and order fulfillment are all considered as part of our overall business plan.

We have anticipated that AmiBroker would be changing and scheduled printing of the Introduction to AmiBroker book with that in mind. We do not have a large inventory of the First Edition on hand.

For as long as there is inventory of the First Edition remaining, the price of the book is being lowered from $39.95 to $27.95.

For copies delivered to addresses within the US, delivery using USPS Media Mail is included. For copies delivered using other shipment methods and to overseas destinations, the price has been adjusted accordingly.

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The information above was posted to Introduction to AmiBroker’s website. Note that one of the considerations we have is combining Introduction to AmiBroker and Advanced AmiBroker into a book that might be called Programming AmiBroker, or something similar.

The decision on what to do with both Introduction to AmiBroker and Advanced AmiBroker will be made taking into consideration our other projects, along with the economics of writing, publishing, and supporting the books.

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Keith McCombs

in January 27th, 2012 @ 11:14

I too have the first three BlueOwlPress books. I consider two of the books, “Quantitative Trading Systems” and “Modeling Trading System Performance” to be THE most valuable (and dog eared) of the more than one hundred books in my investment/trading library.

However, I was disappointed with “Introduction to AmiBroker”. Perhaps now might be a good time for me to explain why, since it is being considered for a possible rewrite and “Advanced AmiBroker” is not yet cast in stone.

When purchasing “Introduction to AmiBroker”, I was hoping that it would provide better explanations of how AmiBroker works than are provided by the “AmiBroker User’s Guide” and AmiBroker’s Help function. Instead what I found added little to what was already provided by AmiBroker.

Just one example, Chapter 8 of the book, over 230 pages, is almost all an exact copy, word for word, what is already in the User’s Guide and Help. One notable exception is that there is a reference to Herman van den Bergen’s “Introduction to the AmiBroker AddToComposite”. (Without Herman’s explanation, I never would have been able to use the function effectively).

Just a few discussions which I expected to see in the book that weren’t there:
One of the most common problems that new users of AmiBroker have relates to the fact that AmiBroker is designed to use ARRAYS. And what AmiBroker calls a variable is what most other programming languages, C, C++, etc, call ARRAYS. It is very easy for the new user to miss this when faced with a 590 page Introduction, or a 1290 page Users Guide. The concept of ARRAYS is absolutely critical to the understanding AmiBroker and yet one must wade through hundreds of pages before it is discussed, and then only briefly. I thorough discussion of ARRAYS and how they impact AmiBroker’s use (IIf() vs. if(), etc.), would have been a very good way to begin the book.

What is the difference between global and local layouts? Why do I care, how can I best make use of the difference, and how can I convert local to global and vise versa?

What use are multiple layers vs using only the default layer?

How do layouts differ from templates, and how can I use them to their best advantage?

Compare ExRem() and Flip(). How are they similar, how do they differ, and when are they appropriate and not appropriate to use?

Hope this helps in your forthcoming books.

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Howard

in January 27th, 2012 @ 18:00

Thanks, Keith, for your candid and helpful comments.

I wish I knew how to please everyone.

The feedback I receive regarding Quantitative Trading Systems and Modeling Trading System Performance is uniformly positive.

About half the people who have sent me comments about Introduction to AmiBroker think it is perfect as an introduction, which is what they want and is what I intended and is how the book is described. Some appreciate having the reference in book form, others do not. About half think the book is too elementary. My impression is that most of the people who were hoping for more advanced content in the introduction book were already well into using AmiBroker when they read the book. They were not the intended audience.

That said, all of the topics you mention, and more, are worthy of being included in a book discussing programming and operation of AmiBroker.

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nooby123

in January 29th, 2012 @ 00:15

After reading Keith’s comment, I wanted to put in my 2 cents. I liked the Amibroker Introduction book mostly because I like printed educational material. I did not like the official Amibroker User Guide that came as a PDF file simply because it was a PDF file. I consider your book to be a printout of the official guide, with the added benefit of seeing the material from a slightly different point of view. As for the cost, the two other books are worth far more than their cost, so I consider the Introduction book as a way to help fund your writing efforts. I actually saw a pirated PDF copy of the first edition of Q.T.S, read it that night, and ordered all 3 physical books the next day. I do agree with Keith that the Flip() & ExRem() stuff was initially confusing to even long-time programmers like me.

Quantitative Trading Systems

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