Say you decide to code up a bunch of risk analytics in Scala. Say Scala doesn't do it for you 2 years from now. You really haven't lost anything - just hire a bunch of VBA jockeys & they'll migrate you back to Excelland in a reasonable span. This isn't complicated device driver code where module A invokes module B with assembly address C...More like convexity on the 10 year swap is different from 2 5 year swaps & that difference can be exploited with a bigsize bet on payoff X and a ratio hedge in case bad things happen. Whether you do all of the linalg/stat/regression scenario analysis in Excel or call a Mathematica routine from Scala should be irrelevant, you get the same answers. So I simply think the risk-reward ratio is out of whack. You're willing to take huge risks on stochastic variables 10 years out into ther future but unwilling to touch a programming language/platform because its too new, even when there's a clear-cut migration path. Seems silly. Don't see how that attitude translates to being cynical about finance.
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Say you decide to code up a bunch of risk analytics in Scala. Say Scala doesn't do it for you 2 years from now. You really haven't lost anything - just hire a bunch of VBA jockeys & they'll migrate you back to Excelland in a reasonable span. This isn't complicated device driver code where module A invokes module B with assembly address C...More like convexity on the 10 year swap is different from 2 5 year swaps & that difference can be exploited with a bigsize bet on payoff X and a ratio hedge in case bad things happen. Whether you do all of the linalg/stat/regression scenario analysis in Excel or call a Mathematica routine from Scala should be irrelevant, you get the same answers. So I simply think the risk-reward ratio is out of whack. You're willing to take huge risks on stochastic variables 10 years out into ther future but unwilling to touch a programming language/platform because its too new, even when there's a clear-cut migration path. Seems silly. Don't see how that attitude translates to being cynical about finance.
You are very naive about the costs of migrating or rolling back, especially in the bank industry.