An oral history of Bank Python • Hacker News Board

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#291

Post by liveranga » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

mst wrote: post #186

leprechaun1066 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big banks don't write code in K4 though, managers generally encourage people not to write code in it due to the difficulty of finding developers who are fluent in it. They all use q and q is very wordy and highly readable if you speak english. It's mostly just developer defined functions which are compositions of the keywords of which there are not many: https://code.kx.com/q/ref/#keywords Most of the code you wo…

Do you have any suggestions for q code to look at? Every time I try array languages I bounce off the ubercompact and I feel like there's actually a chance I could learn something more q like.

I have a copy of Fun Q sitting in the tsundoku pile on my desk that seems pretty good from a quick flick through.

https://www.fun-q.net/

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#292

Post by seanhunter » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 12:38 PM UTC

Atothe4 wrote: post #264

seanhunter wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's precisely why he did it the way he did. He had total deniability. Here's how the conversation would go if it went wrong somehow: "Armen, did you tell Sean to install python?" "No". "Sean, did Armen tell you to install python?" "Err... no. He said I probably wouldn't be fired." "Well it turns out he's not right about everything. Here's a cardboard box for your things."

Nah, I don't think that's why he did it. You say he reached out to you and asked if you liked Python. He probably wanted to roll out Python and was looking for someone who wanted to do it. If he told someone to do something they weren't passionate about, they would fail. He wanted to make sure it succeeded, so he reached out to you. If he's such a bigshot and everyone was frightened of him, he must not have been afra…

Hehe. Well I guess you would have a unique insight into his thought process. ;-) But yes indeed that's certainly another explanation and it did indeed work that way.

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#293

Post by mwexler » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 12:47 PM UTC

This storage of code and data in the same oddball data structure and the "walled ecosystem" reminds me of forth. Forth had great access to its hardware, but it's "screens" and file structures were all unique to it... And extremely performance.

Lots of "table-driven" systems live in bankland, and this python system sounds like the natural evolution of this...

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#294

Post by alexilliamson » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

klelatti wrote: post #103

> This kind of Big Enterprise technology however takes away that basic agency of those Excel users, who no longer understand the business process they run and now has to negotiate with ludicrous technology dweebs for each software change. The previous pliability of the spreadsheets has been completely lost. > Financiers are able to learn Python, and while they may never be amazing at it they can contribute to a much…

Also in insurance. I'm a big fan of using python to generate "read-only" pretty formatted workbooks. It makes the process more reproducible but people who "need my data in excel" still get that.

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#295

Post by alexilliamson » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

jetbooster wrote: post #183

dwohnitmok wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By virtue of Turing completeness there's nothing you can do in Excel that you can't do in a program. It's all a matter of speed. Having seen Excel wizards work their magic before, the dizzying ways they can slice and dice their data with the help of a combination of GUI affordances, formulas, and hot keys is truly astounding. Often times a person could build out a full set of data and charts in half an hour that migh…

And I think here-in lies the trap of excel. You've built this brilliant report because you're an excel wiz, but because of that you've gotten someone up the chain's attention and you need to do it every day/multiple times per day, and automating out all your shortcuts, hotkey and ui clicks with macros becomes a horrifying cludge that had you invested in something more automation oriented earlier would produce more re…

If you're an excel wiz, you build it once and when you need to update, you drop in new data and everything magically is updated.

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#296

Post by qwhelan » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

AmericanBlarney wrote: post #280

qwhelan wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth mentioning that "unapproved software" on bank infrastructure is what an aggressive prosecutor would call "felony bank hacking".

Almost definitely false. Provided you weren't doing anything intentionally malicious with it, the risk would be that regulators might fine the bank for inadequate controls. As such, the bank might fire you for doing something that could lead to such a situation, but I don't see a criminal charge. There was actually quite a decent bit of "unapproved" software in use at one of the banks I worked in - mostly stuff that…

Well the login message I was greeted with on every ssh connection certainly threatened criminal prosecution for unapproved software at the extremely large bank I worked at.

Unlikely? Sure. But a lawyer somewhere thought it was worth reminding me 10x/day, so going to assume it's possible provided your unauthorized software caused a serious monetary loss.

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#297

Post by boringg » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

Sunspark wrote: post #266

sizzle wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow hope OP got a chunk of that!

It's a bank, so probably his reward for good performance was 10k at Christmas.

Hahahah 10k maybe if he was a new intern. Off by an order of magnitude

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#298

Post by Atothe4 » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

seanhunter wrote: post #292

Atothe4 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I don't think that's why he did it. You say he reached out to you and asked if you liked Python. He probably wanted to roll out Python and was looking for someone who wanted to do it. If he told someone to do something they weren't passionate about, they would fail. He wanted to make sure it succeeded, so he reached out to you. If he's such a bigshot and everyone was frightened of him, he must not have been afra…

Hehe. Well I guess you would have a unique insight into his thought process. ;-) But yes indeed that's certainly another explanation and it did indeed work that way.

Air cover is crucial, but you can't take land without good boots on the ground ;)

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#299

Post by simonh » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #247

simonh wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only my opinion, but I think the reason Armen said it like he did was because by not making it an order he's giving Sean the option of not doing it, if he's not up for accepting the risk. However the risk was both of them could have got fired. Armen must have known people would know Python had been put on these machines and that he authorised it, in fact what's the point of putting it on them if nobody knows…

Exactly, so what is this Armen character getting out of this other than a potentially big amount of liability and unarticulated risk. The OP said he told people openly that Armen told him he could do it when asked. This makes no sense to me, what’s the upside to Armen? If he is business savvy, he needs to be gaining something in exchange for having his name thrown around by OP as signing off on this.

He's doing his job, which is to ensure people have the tools and resources available to do their jobs. You know, furthering the goals of the organisation.

Re: An oral history of Bank Python

#300

Post by simonh » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #128

simonh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could not be more wrong. Quartz has first class documentation, solid tooling, very well thought out and rigorous code review and access controls. Banks are regulated up to the eyeballs, so everything has to be audited and justified in detail. It's not nirvana, these are real working systems built by humans with human failings. There are tradeoffs. Not every application is suited to these sorts of platforms, but t…

> Quartz has ... solid tooling Is that how you'd describe the IDE and (integrated) VCS?

Yes, it's fine IMHO. Ok it's not your favourite Java IDE, but it's way, way better than some of the crap I've had to use at various places. But then I wrote a 5Kloc PyQt desktop app almost entirely in IDLE so yeah, maybe I'm not the best judge.