Re: [Quantlib-dev] SmileSection

[Ferdinando A. <na...@am...>]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Luigi Ballabio
<lui...@gm...> wrote:
> Oh---and also smileSection->volatility(Null<Real>()) returning the ATM
> volatility [*], when there's a perfectly serviceable atmLevel method
> that can be used for writing volatility(atmLevel()).

The point here is:
1) to have the interface gracefully degrade to the flat-smile case
2) the traders I work for claim it's too much effort to specify a
strike even for non-flat smile, since unless differently specified,
volatility tout-court is the atm one

of course the second point is relevant for the application level so I
will deal with it in QuantLibAddin if you want to change it in
QuantLib

> why is exerciseTime() public when it's only used internally?
no strong reason beside he fact that all termstructures' interfaces
are also time based so it might be sensible for a smile to know where
it stands along the time dimension

ciao -- Nando