Top Programming languages

GitHub, the worldwide repository for software projects, is out with its latest statistics for 2017.

A lot of fluff in this post, but the chart that  I liked was the one showing the most popular languages in GitHub:

 

A few random thoughts on this chart:

  1. Amazing to see Javascript so dominate.  With Javascript frameworks all the rage, it would be interesting to see this split out by framework.  Interesting that TypeScript is still pretty small, considering Angular in most cases should use Typescript, so I would expect to see Typescript grow faster than Javascript.
  2. Python #2?  For years few people in the business world have taken python seriously (famous quote by Stack Overflow founder Jeff Atwood on PHP:  “PHP isn’t so much a language as a random collection of arbitrary stuff, a virtual explosion at the keyword and function factory,”).
  3. C++ ahead of C#?  This leads me to believe this chart may not be an accurate representation of language popularity.  I find it hard to believe the C++ community is bigger than C#.  Interestingly, but not surprisingly,  VB doesn’t even make the list.
  4. Ruby at #4.  I don’t know Ruby, but I keep hearing really good things about it.  If I was going to start in on  learning a new programming language, I would want to look at Ruby.  I am attracted to opinionated languages, and Ruby on Rails has a reputation for being so.  Another great example of opinionated software was Microsoft Access – by doing what it was designed to do you could crank out forms faster than anything – as long as you didnt deviate from what it did well.

Reading GitHub’s post makes you realize how much GitHub is  responsible for the growth in open source software.  It is also perhaps the best collaborative public programming platform out there.  Having a community where developers can easily share code and contribute is one reason for the speed at which new software applications come to market.  We all borrow code from someone.  And perhaps thats the way it should be.

 

Sector Allocation and Business Cycles

Of late I have been doing a lot of analysis around stock market sectors.  In the past I hadn’t really paid too much attention to sector weighting, but during all the technical analysis I have been doing has let me to believe there probably is something to trying to allocate holdings by sector.   I recently completed building my sector analysis model (see it here), and am test driving it to see if it can lead to enhanced returns in my portfolio.

During my deep dive into this subject, I ran across this page on the Fidelity website that did a pretty decent job of giving basic sector weighting advice.   They use a business cycle approach to sector weighting, and they had this interesting chart showing how different sectors do during different parts of the business cycle:

Sector Performance by Business Cycle
Sector Performance by Business Cycle

Fidelity’s opinion is that we are in the mid to late phase of the business sector, and that seems reasonable to me.  So using the chart above should give you an idea as to what sectors to start thinking about over-weighting or under-weighting.

One thing I realized when I started looking at my holdings by sector that I was way overweighted in the Technology and Consumer discretionary sectors.  This is because I typically ‘buy what I know’, products or services that I use.      I don’t think there is anything wrong in buying what you know, but this analysis has helped me keep better disciplined as to managing portfolio risk.

So its been an interesting dive into thinking about sectors, whether or not its meaningful or not only time will tell. I will be watching the market with a focus on sectors, and will see if this can be a tool to enhance portfolio performance.

 

An API World

I was perusing Twitter the other day, and this post jumped out at me:

So I checked out the list at https://github.com/toddmotto/public-apis

Over the years I have used a lot of free API’s to get data, and it was interesting to see this consolidated list of free data sources.   There has never been a better time to be a developer than now.

Granted, this list contains a lot of silly data (I’m talking about you – Game of Thrones API) but I foresee an explosion of more free data.  If this list proves at least one thing, people will put work into publishing work on the internet with no guarantee of compensation.  It is economically irrational behavior, but it goes to show that money may not be the only thing to motivate productive behavior.

Conceivably, with today’s client site coding advancements through the use of javascript frameworks, and all this freely available data,  anyone could build decent apps that just run on the local browser.  And instead of having to host that app on some webserver somewhere, you could just email it to friends and others who may want to use your app.

So if nothing else, this reinforces my belief that the internet is a force for good.  The internet gets a bad rap for encouraging anti-social and hateful behavior, so lets at least acknowledge some of the great work people are doing for free.

The Shape Of A Market

There are lots of commentators arguing both sides about whether or not we are at peak stock market valuation.  Certainly there is evidence that the market is richly valued, yet the market still goes up.

John Hussman just published a compelling analysis of where the market is valuation wise, showing how by one measure the current stock market overvaluation already exceeds the 2001 tech bubble.  This chart breaks valuation down by market breadth, showing that if you look across the whole market, the value sectors are more overvalued that in 2001:


Note that the mid to low valuation stocks are at higher levels than in 2001, showing the market is much more broadly expensive than when the tech stocks were all the rage.  One analysis of this could be that this is all due to the lower bond rates, and by comparsion to current bond rates the market is in an expected valuation range (kind of reminds me of the old joke about a guy bragging to his friend that he just bought a dog for $20,000 – when asked how he paid for it, he said ‘I gave the seller two $10,000 cats’).  Valuation is relative.

So this doesn’t tell me conclusively that the market is at a top.  Indeed, John Hussman had a similar market top article a year ago, and the S&P 500 is up over 13% since then.  My current leaning is a major market correction will happen before the next presidential election, but I don’t currently see any signs within the next 6 months.  I will agree though that we are in risky territory.

Microsoft Access and Web Api

I have a number of old Microsoft Access databases that I maintain for clients, and I shudder anytime a client wants to make changes.  Since I live happily in the world of c# and sql server,  going back into old VBA code and DAO is getting more and more painful.  Understandably these clients dont have the budget to upgrade their app, and it works fine in Access – Microsoft Access does have its place in the world for quickly building and prototyping apps, and when you deal with clients with pretty limited budgets, Microsoft Access still has a place in my toolbox.

Recently a client asked me to upsize his Access database to SQL server hosted on a cloud server.  This is usually a relatively simple task, and I got it up and running in a few hours.  Unfortunately, some of his entry forms (which have subforms) take a long time to render due to the amount of data Access is pulling across the web.  So I got some more budget to optimize the app, and started dreading going in and doing major surgery on this app and getting mired in VBA and DAO.

I want to transition this client to web based entry forms on a WordPress website, and eventually toss out the Access front end – and here I am spending time changing what I consider long-term throwaway code.  So before I started coding, I kept thinking to myself there must be a better (cheap) way that would allow me to code in C# and set the foundation for future architectural improvements.

First off, I decided that I have to change these slow complicated entry forms to unbind the controls from the tables,  and hand code all the database access in VBA, calling pass-through queries or using ADODB.   Before I started this, I wracked my brain for an alternatives.  That’s when I struck on the approach I liked – as shown in the diagram below:

 

Upgrade Architecture
Microsoft Access Upgrade Architecture

 

First, I built some plumbing and VBA methods in my Access app to handle converting from and to JSON format.  I found a nice VBA / JSON library (thanks Tim Hall!) on Github that helped with this and saved me a bunch of time from writing my own JSON Formatter.  This will allow my Access app to communicate with an API.  I then created a .net webclient wrapper that I exposed to COM so that Access can see it.  Then, I changed my DAO reads and docmd.Saves to API get and put requests, using json built from the form fields.  These calls from my Access to a Web-API app route thru the com wrapper nicely to get and save data from the API.  After getting this plumbing configured, which wasn’t a huge deal, I got it working and it is working great.  The architecture will be reusable across other Microsoft Apps that I maintain, and the performance is great.  Initially I was a little concerned about the cost of jumping in and out of managed code for each request, but that really isn’t an issue.

I like design this because it keeps my from having to write in old languages and data access methods.  This also MVC principles to Access; I am really only using Access as the view engine.  Later on, I can use the same models I built in the Web API project to drive views in Angular, mobile apps, or any Javascript framework of choice.   I think this is a very affordable way to start transitioning code bases from Access VBA to .Net, with limited additional cost to the client.

So I am optimistic this is the solution for most of the Access applications that I write.  It should be an affordable solution to migrate these existing apps to a cloud based client server or SPA  application.

I have always been a fan of Microsoft Access, but I am afraid this brand new web enabled world, it is showing its age.  Hopefully, this infusion of technology will help extend the life of my Access apps, and provide a nice affordable solution to make them ready for  the future.

Crisis or Not?

Many Economists are making dire predictions about the next economic slowdown due to the increases in world leverage since the 2008 crash.

Bill Mauldin is the latest to publish an interesting commentary on this.   The main thesis of his post is he sees far more dangers than the Federal Reserve.

His biggest beef is with Janet Yellen’s recent quote:

Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis? You know probably that would be going too far, but I do think we’re much safer, and I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be.

Contrast that quote with this chart Mauldin included showing how much more the world is leveraged than in 2008:

crisisimage

 

So who is right:  Was 2008 a once in a lifetime economic experience, or is there another disaster looming?  As is true in most cases, hopefully the answer is somewhere in the middle.  But the leverage is something to think about.  In 2007, the GDP of the G7 countries (which is a decent approximation of the above chart) was 31 trillion.  In 2017, it is estimated to be 36 trillion.  In 10 years, the G7 economic output as increased just over 16%, yet leverage is now more than tripled.

So for an analogy, lets say in 2007 you were earning $31,000/year, and had outstanding debts of $4,000.  In 2017, you think you will be earning $36,000/year with debts of $13,000.  Would you consider yourself fiscally better off in 2007 or 2017?  How worried would you be if there was a recession on the horizon.

Some economists may question whether this is a valid analogy or not, but it does show the magnitude of how the countries fiscal health has changed.  Obviously Janet Yellen doesn’t consider that analogy totally on target,  based on her above quote.  I would sure like to see better evidence as to why she thinks we are so much better off now.

If I had to pick between the two camps in this argument, I would lean toward’s Mauldin’s thinking.  His quote:

Generals always fight the last war. The next crisis probably won’t originate in residential mortgage loans. It will come from somewhere else, and we have no idea whether the banks are actually ready for it.

I don’t get the impression this worldwide glut of debt greatly concerns the Federal Reserve Board.  Hopefully they are right.  If they are wrong, history will likely place the blame for any major economic downturn squarely on the Federal Reserve and all worldwide central banks.

 

 

 

The Rise of eSports

I have been very casually following the popularity of eSports.  Most commonly, eSports is defined as multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players.  Tournaments such as The International, the League of Legends World Championship, the Evolution Championship Series and the Intel Extreme Masters provide live broadcasts of the competition, and prize money to competitors.

One indicator of the emergence of eSports is that it is increasingly noticed by Venture Capitalists.  Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends Report (published by Kleiner Perkins)  has a whole section on the rise of eSports and a few interesting charts of note.

The first chart shows that the Monthly Viewers of eSports rose to 160 million viewers in 2016, with year over year growth increasing to 40%:

 

eSport Viewers
Monthly viewer growth

Remember – these are people watching other people, professionals and amateurs, play video games.   Much like people watch other professional sports such as football or baseball.  But they are watching virtual characters on a screen.  But from an entertainment value, is it inferior to watching real people play sports on TV?  Perhaps its even better, since the area in which these games are played are not constrained by real world limitations.

Now this chart is the one that really opened my eyes:

 

eSports vs Traditional Sports
eSports vs Traditional Sports

This chart is a little misleading, as the population of the survey was limited to those ‘with at least a slight interest in eSports’.  However, given that caveat – look at the second bar in the chart.  For the millennial respondents,  preference between eSports and traditional sports was split.  If I owned a pro sports club, I think I would be nervous.  eSports is like the Amazon.com of the sports world.  It has no brick and mortal requirements, and no players to pay and travel expenses to deal with.  If eSports can get continue to grow at near its current pace, we might start seeing alot less people in sports stadiums.

Lastly, watching eSports is not the only online entertainment category that is growing:

mmpmau

Monthly Active Users (MAU) for the largest Multiplayer games are rapidly growing.  This chart shows users have almost doubled in two years.  Given the huge technology boom that Virtual Reality could bring to this space, it is not inconceivable that this rate of growth would increase.  As more millennials grow up playing online games vs playing schoolyard traditional sports, I have to assume the more future fans of watching eSports will result.

I think we are in early days of this entertainment transformation.  This could be as big as what online shopping has done to traditional retail.  If so, we are in for another wave of disruption, this time to professional and collegiate sports.

 

3 Questions For Fitbit Investors

After a long break from writing for Seeking Alpha, I have gotten back in the groove again and just had another article posted.

3 Questions For Fitbit Investors

This article has been brewing in my mind for several months, and I finally had a chance over the long weekend to get my thoughts organized and in ‘print’.

To read the whole article, you will have to register with Seeking Alpha (which I recommend to any investor).  This site has interesting articles written by a wide variety of authors – a great resource if you are looking for investment opinions.

Malltown America

A few posts ago I mentioned concern about how the transformation of retail might hurt the interesting cultural feel in Europe.  However, after reading this article about how small towns might be the savior for retail, I am a little more optimistic.

There is no question online shopping will further transform the retail shopping model for some time to come.  But maybe small towns give us an early clue to how everything will shake out.   Perhaps retail will just get more focused – not a wide variety of shopping centers spreading a feeling of ‘Generica‘ throughout the country – but a focal retail center in every town, large and small.  Perhaps each collection of retail centers will have a theme or specialty.  Strip malls will disappear, with retail clustered around core centers of small towns or neighborhoods within large cities.

This central core would have more than just retail shops.  Much like you are seeing shopping centers branch out into restaurants, gyms, and other service providers.  I think it would be much more interesting to see neighborhoods within cities have a central core of unique combination of shops, and a place that can be the central gathering place for residents in the neighborhood.  Europe has perfected this model, with the central town market square typically lined with restuarants with outdoor seating, with stores surrounding the central square.  The further you get from the central square, the more it turns residential.   We do see a flavor of this today in some neighborhoods (i.e. Fremont in Seattle) – perhaps the future looks like a lot more small funky neighborhoods and fewer strip malls and big box stores.

As our society becomes more virtually connected and physically isolated, a changing retail model might be the solution to bringing back a feeling of a physical community.   The next waves of technology will be bringing even more social upheaval – perhaps those surviving physical retail stores will evolve and thrive in the coming new world.