C, C++ or Java

[JackDanIce]

Hi all,

For the past two years, I've been learning and applying VBA in various contracting roles. I'm about to start a new permanent role, predominately for my VBA (and Excel) ability.

However, talking to others, it's been suggested it may benefit me to start learning C, C++ or Java. I've also seen a fair few jobs that ask for these skills (SQL and Access too) so something I'm thinking about doing.

I don't know much about these 3 programming languages, except that they're classed as object orientated?

Can anyone explain in more detail or provide an overview? I'm also curious to know if I wanted to try multi-thread programming are any of these more suited for this?

Any constructive replies greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance,
Jack

 

[RoryA]

VBA is also somewhat object-orientated in as much as you can create classes for your own objects (it does not support certain features that would make it fully object orientated such as polymorphism) and all of the Office applications VBA interacts with provide the objects for it to manipulate (workbooks, worksheets, ranges, filters, pivottables and so on).
Whether those languages will be of use to you depend on where you want to work, I think. From an Office point of view, C++ has some relevance as you can use it to create XLLs but C and Jave aren't much use. For working with Office you would be far better off looking at C# or VB.Net (both of which are also object orientated). They also offer the ability to create multithreaded applications, though my limited understanding of that is that it can be quite complicated!
FWIW.

 

[JackDanIce]

Hi Rorya,

Helpful as always, thank you.

I'm about to start work for a hedge fund, so VBA is ideal working with spreadsheets alone (i.e. amongst others, calculating the net worth of the portfolio, reconciling this to independent calculations, adhoc projects etc) and is little need for interaction with programs (Office or otherwise) outside of Excel.

My reason for asking is, if in the future they wish to start creating financial models/valuations/simulations, e.g. Monte-Carlo simulations or models with stochastic variables, multi-thread programming, (perhaps using graphics cards which from a maths point of view may be ideal for this) is likely to be the way forward, so really thinking about learning a new programming language to anticipate this.

In this in mind, would C# still be your suggested option?

Thanks,
Jack

 

[RoryA]

I would think so, though that's not really my area. I'll see if I can get someone else to chip in.

 

[JackDanIce]

Appreciate that, thanks

 

[Colin Legg]

They're all quite different, so it's hard to say. Your soon-to-be employer is bound to have those sorts of financial models in place already; once you've joined why don't you speak with the quant developers to see what they use, and make your decision based on what they say?

As you mentioned, Excel developers with good VBA, C#, C++ (and SQL Server) are in demand, so adding any missing ones to your tool belt would be a great idea!

Btw, C isn't object orientated - it's a procedural language.

 

[JackDanIce]

Hi Colin,

Thank you.

I don't think they do quant work (the fund's only recently started as a spin out from another fund) and it's investments are fundamentally driven (maybe with technical analysis to refine entry/exit points)

However, it seems C# should be what I look at next and I've heard SQL is not hard to learn but in high demand so will look at that also.

Appreciate the input rorya and Colin

Thanks,
Jack