Adam, Ryan, martin
-
Why between the three of you is no-one wanting to comment on the status of the football backtesting update?. The reason I suspect most of us joined was the football data. The backtesting has been muted for well over a year now. In the meantime we get numerous updates of developments with horse racing software, but why continue to either ignore or duck the issue ref the soccer backtesting. ?
Your stats software is superb but the backtesting upgrade would surely enable the service to take a big step forward..
So with respect can we have an honest appraisal of where you are up to and likely timeframes please?
Messages to you individually reference this, to date, have been met with zero response..
Come on guys- it's time to be upfront...if its not going to happen before straight about it.
Peter -
@Akiva-Anderson Thank you Keith, the reality of this as well is this will most likely be the last software we develop.
Then it will just be a case of making sure we have the best football and horse racing backtesting and stats software out there.
Which I think we have with the horse racing at the moment.
-
There was talk about horse racing software for years at BTC. It arrived. The football software will arrive too. I imagine it's the next progression at BTC.
It is frustrating that the back testing software isn't available yet. However, I prefer they get it right and not release it with a lot of bugs or glitches. The last thing anyone wants is a software package that nobody has any faith in.
Take your time
-
-
All good things come to those that wait!
-
@peter-Richard-hull said in Adam, Ryan, martin:
Why between the three of you is no-one wanting to comment on the status of the football backtesting update?....The backtesting has been muted for well over a year now.
In the last few months, Ryan and I have done a podcast episode dedicated to answering people's questions about the upcoming backtesting software, where we answered those questions and also explained where we are and what was left to do.
Many of my posts on the forum prior to that podcast answered various questions about the new version.
Most of my posts on my weekly update thread here have also talked about progress with the football software. I'll be the first to admit that I have been crap at updating that thread recently as I've been away a lot, but I will do one this week and, as usual, there will be mention of the football software.
In the meantime we get numerous updates of developments with horse racing software
Couple of things on this one. Firstly, we obviously need to maintain our existing software and continue trying to clear the backlog of long-standing feature requests etc. Contrary to the claims of some other people, we're not some huge faceless company with endless resources; we're a small development team doing the best we can with the resources we have.
The other thing to note is that the new football software is going to work in a very similar way to the horse racing software. So the features being added to the horse racing software are also being added to the new football software. In many cases recently, the updates we made to the horse racing software were ideas we actually developed first for the new football software and implemented in the horse racing because we knew they would be useful there too. This reduces the time required on beta testing various features later in the football software, because they're already out there and working in the horse racing. A good example of this is the recent "multiple results groupings" feature that we added.
We're also still adding things to the current football software as well, e.g. new football ratings, xG stats, women's leagues, etc etc. When we get a request for the football software, we weigh up whether we can implement it now or if it will really have to wait until the new version. If we can, we add it to the current software so people can benefit from it without having to wait an indeterminate amount of time for it. So I don't really think football is being neglected.
but why continue to either ignore or duck the issue ref the soccer backtesting. ?
Please provide specific examples of when we have done this. Thanks.
Your stats software is superb but the backtesting upgrade would surely enable the service to take a big step forward..
Absolutely. And because we already have the backtesting mechanism working in the horse racing, along with the basis for a perfectly good UI, you might say there is absolutely no good reason why we wouldn't apply the same upgrade to the football software.
And you'd be right. Which is why we are doing it.
So with respect can we have an honest appraisal of where you are up to and likely timeframes please?
I've said in many recent messages that we are working on the final stages, namely the strategy queries and their performance. Yes, I've been saying that for a long time, but it's a large challenge. The football queries are much more complex than the horse racing ones and we deal with many more market types. We've had to completely redesign our database several times to try and address some of those challenges, and create a new platform to host all of our software.
Of the two of us who are working on this, I am working on getting the new platform up and running (which will consolidate several disparate sites into one and reduce support burden in itself) and the other member of the team is working on the football back-end and strategy queries.
On top of this, unexpected support issues obviously come up along the way with any platform, software, etc. These have to take precedence over project work.
Sometimes I spend longer on comms than I expected, for instance replying to this post will probably have taken me an hour by the time I finish it, as I wanted to ensure I was as specific as I could be, given the tone and implications. I try and always give a full answer that deals with every point raised when replying to things, whether on here or via email.
Basically, I can easily sit down at the start of a day expecting to do one thing all day and end up juggling 5 different things and unfortunately being less productive overall.
I track every minute of every day in Toggl and review the times at the end of the week. Some weeks I spend less than an hour on unexpected support issues. Some weeks I spend upwards of 20 hours on them.
So I cannot give a timeframe because I would be plucking the date out of my arse and that's not helpful to anyone. We made that mistake with the horse racing software.
I realise people don't like that answer and I'm sorry about that.
Messages to you individually reference this, to date, have been met with zero response..
Maybe I missed one, but having scanned through my PMs I don't seem to have any messages from you.
I also checked your post history in your profile and can't see anything unanswered about this.
Looking at your email history with us, we sent an email a while back about our anniversary podcast to see what people wanted answering. You mentioned about the new football software, so we covered it in the podcast. I can't see anything else from you on this subject.
Again feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of the above.
Come on guys- it's time to be upfront...if its not going to happen before straight about it.
Again, I'd love to know when we have been anything other than upfront about this. You may not like the answer you've been given, but that's not an indication that we're hiding anything. You may not like the fact that we cannot give a specific date for its completion, but that doesn't mean it's never going to happen.
What could we possibly gain from saying we're going to create some software, and then just never doing it? Or from delaying it unnecessarily?
Is it taking longer than we would have liked? Yes, and we're as keen as anyone to get it out there and stop hemorrhaging time and money on development. There is a minimum standard that I want to achieve to get it out there and once that's done, we can begin the work of improving it based on the great feedback of everyone who starts using it.
I'm glad you like the software and there's no doubt that the new version will be game-changing. I'm sorry that I can't be more specific about timings.
What would help would just be some periodic updates on progress.. ?
This is exactly why I created my weekly update thread, so the best way of achieving this will be to watch that thread. If more than 3 people are actually going to read it going forward, I will commit to not being so crap at updating it.
-
Hi tx for reply.
The tone was not intended to be aggressive or negative, and apologies if that is how it was interpreted..
Just seeking a direct update ref the testing, as I have not had responses to questions posed directly .
In the post I specifically highlighted how superb the football stats are, but also how much of an improvement the backtesting would bring to the party
I appreciate there are delays en route to introducing software upgrades
What would help would just be some periodic updates on progress.. ?
Peter -
@peter-Richard-hull not sure where the tone of this message has come from to be honest.
Strange one this as I haven't ever knowingly ignored any of your messages, I actually spend a lot of my day answering members questions via email and this forum.
I have never willingly 'ducked or ignored' the question. This may be the 100th time I have said it but the answer is simple it is being worked on and these things take time, it's not possible to say it will be out by X date, that's not how software development works, there are constant issues and distractions that pop up during development that have to be attended to.
There are no set dates for release, we have updated other things alongside this as they feed into the football software. So for example, the Horse Racing updates will help the Football software be better as it is using the same framework, so we are constantly learning how to make it the best it can be for you guys.
I'll let @Adam give his answer as I am sure he will want to reply to these accusations. He works really hard on implementing the hundreds of requests he gets per year to add things to the software, alongside making sure current software runs well and still developing new software all at the same time.
