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Comment by easytiger | Hacker News Reader

> Bloomberg is one of the best software companies in history

If you were a developer working with their API based feeds you wouldn't be saying that

> the user interface on the Bloomberg Terminal isn’t great, but the customer service is incredible. If it breaks or doesn’t do something you need, the company is willing to fix it or build it.

In other words the best from the customer's perspective.

So far as UI quality goes, I put stability (rarely changes) and consistency/predictability (clicking this may take a bit without feedback that anything’s happening, which isn’t great, but it always gives a result, even if it’s just an error, so long as the button made its little “I’ve been clicked” animation, and if it didn’t do that, the click 100% for sure did not register) over everything else. IDK if this product has those qualities, but I’d take those over something the devs/UX/designers are always fiddling with in the name of “usability” any day.

The UI is blazingly fast and largely driven by keyboard and the quick box. There is not much clicking

It’s largely keyboard driven. There is very little fluff. The keybindings and UI haven’t changed for decades.

I loved it, and I’m on the younger side of finance workers. It looks serious and feels serious and is blazing fast.

If someone “modernised” the UI, they’d likely lose their multi-millionaire customers who appear just to have it for vanity’s sake. The UX is a gating mechanism that enhances the network’s value.

So vim but for finance?

I love this

From the point-of-view of a developer working there, in practice this means that if something breaks in an application I'm responsible for, e.g. when the markets open in Tokyo, which is 5am my time, the company can and will phone me and expect me to log in right away and do whatever it takes to fix the problem :-)

I fully appreciate your comment, however, from experience, a "successful" software company doesn't necessarily have great APIs. That's only the tip of the iceberg.

There are many other parameters that define a successful company. And I'd even dare to say that most of these companies are not particularly great at designing APIs [0].

[0]: https://www.oracle.com/middleware/technologies/api-manager.h...

Are you talking from a bit of usability or reliability?

Their usability model is based a bit in the past, I agree. It can be a little convoluted and seems oldschool.

However reliability (which obviously matters the most) is the most rock solid API you can ask for. Compare it to anything else on the market. Their nearest competitor Reuters is kind of a joke compared to Bloomberg. Reuters is easier to use but it's not 100% reliable. Markets can stop streaming you data and you have no way of knowing etc.

Bloomberg is SOLID and you get what you pay for.

couldn't that be said about every financial instrument ever, solely due to complexity and crust built over time/changing regulations?

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