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Comment by mpalmer | Hacker News Reader

"Hedge funds will go to great lengths in pursuit of profits, whether it is by counting cars in satellite photos of parking lots or shipping gold across the Atlantic. Building a compiler—a piece of software that turns human-written code into programs a computer can execute—for your homegrown language? That still raises eyebrows."

Cringeworthy. Quant funds do in fact work on things like this. It's not that crazy.

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I don't think you know what "cringe" means... this really makes you cringe? And they didn't say it was crazy, they said it was interesting enough to raise eyebrows. Everyone knows there are amazing coders in hedge funds, but not many hedge funds have forked a language - it is worthy of discussion here.

I think you're reaching for an interpretation of what I said that's easier to challenge.

Once you explain to the average person what a compiler is, they can draw a straight line from writing the compiler to the hedge fund reducing risk, gaining a competitive edge, whatever.

But this writer is choosing to hold up custom compilers as even more of an oddball move than counting cars, or shipping gold overseas. It's lazy writing from someone who is mistaking their lack of technical knowledge for common-sense insight into how strange software is. It is cringe.

It is fair competition. Using the same tools as one's competition yields similar gains. Using better tools increases the possibility of higher profits. Same as in manufacturing, chip making: better tools more profit. Potentially better profit. Nothing cringey about it.

You're misreading the comment.

Symmetry investments had a similar relationship with the D language.

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