SPOOZ Inc (SPZI)

[Imperial Whazoo]

I really don't want to belabor the point, but VBA will not accommodate the data speeds. To use VBA, you would need to manage "fetches", as it were, on a timer external to VBA. I spent about 3 months trying to employ VBA to do just this, because I am programmer. I did it on another product (not Spooz) but the issue was the same: VBA is simply too slow to manage the data.

That is why Spooz built the middleware piece. That also explains why they have their own scripting language. VBA will still be present as a part of Excel, but its usefulness in building custom real-time trading applications is limited by its limitations. Spooz circumvented the limitations by providing a scripting language that can be either drag-n-drop or manual line item. And the scripts can be compiled as free-standing slugs of C++ code. My firsts posts on the ability to generate complete black-box solutions using VBA were incorrect. I made the same assumptions as regards VBA. I have since talked several times to folks at Spooz and have come to a modified understanding (which also may prove to be less than 100% accurate in the future, LOL).

But as it now stands, custom coding at the rated speed is done via the scripting language. The components that can be created as slugs of separately compilable C++ code are the custom building block of which custom black box applications could be constructed. To the extent that innumerable combinations of these components can be assembled into a custom script, there may well never be a need to generate separate external C++ code snippets, but the ability is there to do so if desired or necessary.

But the limitations of VBA will need to be taken into account in attempting to design complex custom trading solutions. VBA, in the hands of cunning coders, will surely bear incredible fruit, but any Spooz/VBA mixture will still be held back by existing limitations to VBA. Spooz has given us a scripting language and an amazing collection of building block that can be used via the scripting environment, but the underlying limitations of VBA have not disappeared, and as regards the creation of custom trading applications, VBA is still a kluge.

I plan to try to do the bulk of my custom application design using the built-in components visible to the scripting language. If necessary I may compile my scripts so they can be used in VB (or who knows what on the Linux side). In this way, there is no limit to the power of what can be designed, but VBA will always be a kluge and, to do anything genuinely powerful, you will need to avoid VBA, IMHO.

Thats my present understanding. Could be wrong, but thats what I've concluded after a half dozen conversations with Spooz folks over the last two months.

Imperial Whazoo