Thank you to those who responded with kind words, encouragement, or joined the donor list. I can now count my benefactors on more than one hand and several were very generous. I’ve had many suggestions on how to move forward from here including removing all the code, posting limited versions, or requiring a subscription to gain access.
Though it makes little sense from a business perspective, I’m not inclined to do any of these. The blog was not designed as a money making venture. My intent was to share what I have and help educate people on a language with scant documentation, and provide some first-rate trading tools. To that end, I think I’m succeeding as I’m already seeing copies (sometimes mangled) of my code popping up around the net.
The donation mechanism is merely a means to make the effort more than a zero sum gain on my end. My error was in expecting that people who used the studies would “pay it forward” as a matter of principle. Unfortunately, most do not, but are content to take what is offered and not look back. As Greg put it “Why buy the cow when you’re getting the milk for free?”
Well, where does that leave us? A careful review of the blog will show that I have now removed a small portion of the code and labeled it “CODE RESERVED FOR DONORS ONLY.” This is my way of saying thank you to those who donated and not “Giving all the milk away for free.”
So, I’ve devised a donation model which I feel is fair and ought to keep a case of cold ones in the fridge.
$75 perpetual updates
For the elite list of folks who have already donated, you are grandfathered in with perpetual updates for being stand-up people.
As before, I’m always available to answer questions, or code up custom requests. I don’t charge but rather accept what you feel is fair for any help rendered. Terrible business model – I know, but I’m still convinced that what you sow will come back tenfold.
Thank you,
Eric (aka ThinkScripter)
*And The Crowd Applauses* You’re the man!!
Eric we may be on your “elite list” of donors, but you are not only an elite scripter but a first-rate person as well — I was rather surprised at how quickly you responded back to my IFT comment with a revised script the other day. For a volunteer effort, that impressed me, as does the down-to-earth nature of your comments and tone of the site. No hype, just a lot of stuff for fellow ‘swimmers to find useful.
I’m glad i found your site and for the reasons I just said, was more than happy to contribute — keep up the great work!
(But do NOT buy cheap beer!)
Life is too short for cheap beer!
Eric,
Last night I stumbled upon your site while trying to mess with ThinkScript. After looking through just a few things, I realized the quality of your work was absolutely first rate.
Thank you so much for the work you do. I spent most of the night tweaking the studies and creating strategies out of them. After backtesting a few of them, I’m even more impressed.
Great job! Thank you for all your hard work, it is awesome!
My pleasure Ryan. Best of luck to you in your trading.
A great scripter deserves the best beer and will get it, are we all will be stuck with just average indicators! Proud to be on the team!! Great job and cheers to Eric the thinkscripter the best of the best..
for all you this buds for you!
Basil/
Eric
Am very happy to contribute to your work. Great stuff and it is all really appreciated. I am sure you must put far more work into your studies than you openly admit since the studies are all so “clean” and well written.
Thanks again. Looking forward to seeing what you create next!
RobH
Thank you Rob. I appreciate the kind words.
I think your stuff is very good, and I applaud your desire to keep things open. I believe that the more you teach and give to others, the more it will come back to you. That’s what I’ve seen in my years in trading, anyway. Nothing wrong with a donation now and then, of course, but quality work, freely available is what will drive people to your site, and what will open doors you never would have expected.
I have been coding WealthlabPro and would like to move over to the TOS platform, where I prefer to trade. If you could be so helpful, what is the coding language being used in ThinkScript? Learning it by studying code written by other is a tough way to go, and the TOS Thinkscript manual far less than helpful! Any direction you can provide would be appreciated.
ThinkScript is its own scripting language as near as I can tell.