#90secondFIX

Should API documentation be machine-readable or human-readable? Can firms move away from legacy documentation formats, such as Word, and create, edit, and distribute specs in a way that satisfies both? FinSpec schema is a machine-readable documentation format, which allows firms to electronically capture their API dictionary, grammar, workflows, and state machine. It also gives you the ability to capture things like change history, and layout, plus crucially also capture customer-specific transformations and normalisations.

In this week’s #90secondFIX, Chris Lees discusses the growing popularity of spec-first development in the Web API world, and how this can be effective for FIX API development. Traditionally, implementation-first development means writing down a set of requirements, someone then develops the integration and you work out whether that is correct or not. This creates a lot of back and forth as requirements iterate, which can cause confusion and consume resource.

In this week’s #90secondFIX, Chris Lees introduces QuickFIX, what it is, and how it can and should be used. QuickFIX can either mean the open-source FIX engine or the XML format used for machine-readable FIX specifications.

We have FIX 4.2, FIX 4.4, Service Packs, and Extension Packs, but what is FIX Latest? FIX Latest breaks up the different parts of the FIX protocol into; Encoding, Session, and Application layer. FIX Latest is essentially a big pot of messages, fields, and enumerations enabling firms to pick and choose depending on the requirements of their API.

In this week’s episode, Chris Lees discusses why people hack together tools inside firms. We look at the pros and cons of developing internal tools to solve specific problems within firms. What are the benefits? and what are the drawbacks?

In this week’s episode, Chris Lees discusses why people hack together tools inside firms. We look at the pros and cons of developing internal tools to solve specific problems within firms. What are the benefits? and what are the drawbacks?

Chris Lees discusses FIX Orchestra, an XML standard document from the FIX Trading Community, designed to express a FIX specification document in a machine-readable format. With an end goal to build up a machine-readable eco-system, FIX Orchestra is designed to reduce the time it takes to onboard counterparties, and improve the overall accuracy of FIX connectivity.