Testimonials
This section of the blog is dedicated to testimonials—genuine feedback from individuals who have been using DefconQ and their experiences. All feedback is objective and has not been influenced or, even worse, censored by me. These testimonials come from readers who reached out to share their thoughts and were subsequently asked if they'd like to be featured.
If you'd like to be featured in the testimonials section, don't hesitate to reach out!
Michele Sanguanini - eFX Trader
Michele recently reached out to me, sharing how valuable DefconQ has been in his journey to learn KDB/Q. He recently started a new role as an eFX Trader and needs to query large sets of data multiple times a day. For this reason, his new role required him to get up to speed with KDB/Q. Michele discovered DefconQ and has been thoroughly enjoying it. I asked Michele if he’d be willing to provide my first testimonial, and he gladly agreed. One Saturday afternoon, we met in the City of London, grabbed a beer, and chatted about KDB/Q.
Here's the transcript:
Alexander: Hi Michele, great to meet you! Could you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, how you got into finance, and your current role? Michele: Hi Alex, Nice to meet you. I’m 29, living in London, and currently working as eFX trader. What brought me here is an insatiable passion for finance and numbers. I worked for 5 years in a retail eFX brokerage, took a small career deviation in market risk while studying for the CFA, and now I am back in eFX.
Alexander: That's an impressive journey, well done. So, you've recently been asked to learn KDB/Q—how's it going so far? Where did you start, and what have you found particularly helpful? Michele: I would say that the fact that KDB querying syntax resembles SQL made me think it was an easy journey. Nothing more wrong! I soon realised that KDB is way more than the typical SELECT FROM and to really use it fully, I needed it study it deeply. I started with the KX Academy and, once I got the basic understanding, I started to read some chapters of “Q for Mortals”, “Big Data and Machine Learning with KDB/Q+” from my colleague Jan and following DefconQ.
Alexander: What do you think of DefconQ? Michele: Very useful resource! I like how each concept is explained with easy terminology and easy-to-follow examples.
Alexander: How does DefconQ compare to other resources? Michele: I would say it’s very beginner friendly and the fact that it’s a newsletter gives you the time to read it more times and fully understand the content before receiving the next article.
Alexander: What aspects of DefconQ do you find most helpful? Michele: The way each concept is broken down and explained with an easy conversational style. The article “How to Read, Understand and Learn KDB/Q code” is what got me hooked!
Alexander: What was your biggest challenge when you first started learning KDB/Q? Michele: Coming from easier-to-read languages like SQL and Python, it was a bit of shock using ?, !, #, etc.. as functions. It requires memory to remember what each symbol does and practice to use each of them properly.
Alexander: Now that you’ve begun, how do you feel about KDB/Q? Michele: I loved it! Way more powerful than SQL. Once you start querying hundreds of thousands of rows, it really makes a difference. Best time saver resource!
Alexander: Are there any areas where you still find KDB/Q challenging? Michele: Having started my “coding” journey over 10 years ago with Visual Basic, I still find it difficult to adapt to a language without explicit for loops. Alex, I guess we need a new article on iterators in KDB!
Alexander: What advice would you give to others who are just starting their KDB/Q journey? Michele: Practice! Read and apply straight away what you learned. Learning by doing is the best way, in my opinion! Even because reading only don’t throw you errors when you misunderstand, writing and executing codes will!
Alexander: Is there anything you’d like to see added to DefconQ in the future? Michele: Iterators and also how the use cases of the function form of select, update, etc.
Alexander: Anything else you’d like to share? Michele: Waiting for your next article, Alex!
Thank you so much for your time—happy coding!