do you have to be a programmer? | Forex Factory

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do you have to be a programmer?

  • #1
  • First Post: Jun 20, 2008 12:33pm Jun 20, 2008 12:33pm
or are there any platforms out there that allow you to set up an ea w/o being a programmer?
Have you seen my pips?
  • #2
  • Jun 20, 2008 12:46pm Jun 20, 2008 12:46pm
Quoting jpd4x
or are there any platforms out there that allow you to set up an ea w/o being a programmer?
Ninjatrader has a wizard that helps you, of course if you want to do anything beyond the wizard you really need to know the basics of Object Oriented programming
  • #3
  • Jun 20, 2008 4:14pm Jun 20, 2008 4:14pm
If you plan on trading a timeframe less then the amount of sleep you require: consider learning to code.

Dale
  • #4
  • Jun 21, 2008 5:56pm Jun 21, 2008 5:56pm
thanks richard. i'll look at ninja trader.

dale, that is what i was afraid of.
Have you seen my pips?
  • #5
  • Jun 21, 2008 9:06pm Jun 21, 2008 9:06pm
Quoting fxRichard
Ninjatrader has a wizard that helps you, of course if you want to do anything beyond the wizard you really need to know the basics of Object Oriented programming
not really, you just need to be able to do basic programming... understanding of OOP not required. Does help if you know how to search MSDN site though. And basic programming (loops, variables, etc.) can be learned in like 1 hr, even by idiots (or people who majored in "arts" degrees ).... the rest is just getting familiar with ninja trader's help files and C# (i.e. MSDN)

Metatrader is even easier than NinjaTrader to learn.. much easier I'd say cause the help system is comprehensive and really easy to use.

Why be afraid of coding? It is easy to pick up... of course the younger you are, the easier it gets... but even for 30-40 yr old people shouldn't be difficult.

What is more difficult in programming is DEBUGGING. How do we avoid this difficulty? Don't write bugs... it's as simple as that. How do you avoid bugs? Plan out what you intend to do first... don't just write it (unless you are a good programmer already). It is like in Math class, where the teacher gets upset at you for only writing down every 3rd or 4th step...

So think about that as "bad programming" (for novices)... why is it bad? Because it is all in your head. Better to put it on paper, and then program it. I mean spell out specific detail like what all your conditions are, what happens if condition is not met, etc. it is like writing your code in English on paper (well, notepad). You'd be surprised how quickly you can program something if you know exactly what you want to achieve.

If you plan things out, there are no bugs, or very few. It is like going on a road trip... helps to know where you are going... and even better if you have a map.

If you get stuck, there are lots of helpful forums out there for metatrader. The best used to be forex-tsd and metaquotes.net, probably still are.

One problem that exists in programming languages are doubles... so make sure you understand what a double number is and why it is sometimes hard to know when it is exactly 0. That might screw you up... search internet about it or get a programmer to explain it to you.

good luck... and my suggestion is, make sure you have something worth turning into an EA before you trying to program it.
  • #6
  • Jun 21, 2008 9:11pm Jun 21, 2008 9:11pm
btw. there was also some code writing tool for mt4... pretty powerful I think but I never tried it... could've been on some fxfisher or fxfisherman or similar type board out there, can't remember... but I suggest learning to actually write code... it is easy enough.
  • #7
  • Jun 21, 2008 10:04pm Jun 21, 2008 10:04pm
Quoting ycomp
Metatrader is even easier than NinjaTrader to learn.. much easier I'd say cause the help system is comprehensive and really easy to use.
I don't want to start a religious war, but the NT model is a much better programming model being event driven, combining this with classes and debugging (apparently MT5 will have classes but still no debugger and does anybody really want to wait for the same amount of time it took them to get MT4 stable?) makes it easy to do things which would be a nightmare in MT4. I think the NT documentation is sparse, but as good as MT4. MQL is good for very basic systems, beyond that, well it depends on your level of masochism.

Quoting ycomp
If you get stuck, there are lots of helpful forums out there for metatrader. The best used to be forex-tsd and Metaquotes.net, probably still are.
I've never tried getting help on TSD for MQL so I can't say what its like (the forum is full of idiots) but I aways found the Metaquotes on-line support abysmal, if you like getting told you are stupid and/or simply being ignored by grumpy Russians then you may have found your thing. The NT support forums are like day vs. night compared to the Metaquotes online help, questions are answered quickly and politely, usually within a couple of hours. NT has bugs for sure but I have yet to see the code breaking disaster releases which Metaquotes specialize in.

The clincher for me is being able to choose brokers beyond your usual MT4 bucket shop scam.

Anyway, in answer to the original question, there is nothing to be afraid of in learning to code, in fact it's a great idea anyway for many reasons (back testing ideas for one).
The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
  • #8
  • Jun 21, 2008 10:45pm Jun 21, 2008 10:45pm
damn ycomp..... pacman has been OUT for years....

you took me to a different decade with that avatar!
  • #9
  • Jun 22, 2008 12:01am Jun 22, 2008 12:01am
Take a look at the link in my sig. It may be of use to you. It's a free course that'll take a complete novice with no programming experience through the process of building a very simple EA.

Hope it helps you and others.

Good luck

Lux
MT4 EA, Indicator and Alert Coder Since 2006
  • #10
  • Jun 22, 2008 7:39am Jun 22, 2008 7:39am
Quoting Craig
I don't want to start a religious war, but the NT model is a much better programming model being event driven, combining this with classes and debugging (apparently MT5 will have classes but still no debugger and does anybody really want to wait for the same amount of time it took them to get MT4 stable?) makes it easy to do things which would be a nightmare in MT4. I think the NT documentation is sparse, but as good as MT4. MQL is good for very basic systems, beyond that, well it depends on your level of masochism.
well NT is in some ways better, some ways not... but what I was talking about is ease of learning. With metatrader, the help is comprehensive and easy to use... there is a Dictionary too so you can quickly browse and find what you need. In NT it takes me far longer to find what I need in the help. Multiply that by the fact that a novice will be looking everything up and you can see why I think metatrader takes the cake for ease of use to learn something.

ALSO

NT is a bitch when it comes to adding new parameters/inputs. If you were organized enough to know every input you would need when you ran the wizard, that's great... but... sometimes that's not possible so it has to be added by hand... and for a novice might be difficult to figure out. Ninjatrader does have good response to questions on their forums, but do you really want to be asking questions about everything? And forget about adding a new plot if you didn't do it in the wizard. I'm sure it is possible, but seemed complicated and easier just to run the wizard again on a new indicator and move your code to it. Seems rather sloppy way to do something.

Now NT is more powerful because of the C# base... and I believe that (from the docs) seems like the multi-time frame support for strategies is good. Don't think you can do that in MT4 but I didn't try and haven't used MT4 much for years.

So I still stand by statement that MT4 is much easier to learn to use. With ninjatrader I'm always hunting for something - even though I spend more time programming ninjatrader these days than MT4, when I tried to write something in MT4 recently, I found it was fast to find whatever I needed to know.

About forums, I recommend forex-tsd but metaquotes is good for searching for answers. Also I'm sure there are ton of other forums with MT4 sections to ask questions in.

anyhow my recommendations were about ease of use to learn to make simple things... I doubt a novice programmer intends to program an extremely complicated EA.

btw. how am I supposed to debug in ninjatrader? I looked it up just now in the help and it says I need Visual Studio installed. sounds like installing a couple gigs of software just to debug NT is overkill... is there another way? If nothing is built into NT are there any other alternative debuggers I can install?
  • #11
  • Jun 22, 2008 7:42am Jun 22, 2008 7:42am
Quoting tdion
damn ycomp..... pacman has been OUT for years....

you took me to a different decade with that avatar!
obviously you don't have a blackberry:

http://www.blackberrycool.com/2005/10/10/00945/

  • #12
  • Jun 22, 2008 7:49am Jun 22, 2008 7:49am
Quoting Craig
The clincher for me is being able to choose brokers beyond your usual MT4 bucket shop scam.
unfortunately seems to me those brokers are all for futures... which is great if you trade futures. And, well futures, is why NinjaTrader exists. but gain is also considered a bucketshop and MbTrading is, well, MbTrading... so I can't see what is there that is better than a bucketshop to place trades on, if you are trading forex... unless you don't care about paying high spreads (gain)/ through-the-roof commissions (mbtrading / EFX).
  • #13
  • Jun 22, 2008 2:47pm Jun 22, 2008 2:47pm
Quoting ycomp
unfortunately seems to me those brokers are all for futures... which is great if you trade futures. And, well futures, is why NinjaTrader exists. but gain is also considered a bucketshop and MbTrading is, well, MbTrading... so I can't see what is there that is better than a bucketshop to place trades on, if you are trading forex... unless you don't care about paying high spreads (gain)/ through-the-roof commissions (mbtrading / EFX).
I should be more specific, it allows me to use Interactive Brokers, who do everything and are dirt cheap on commission.
The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
  • #14
  • Jun 22, 2008 2:53pm Jun 22, 2008 2:53pm
Quoting ycomp
well NT is in some ways better, some ways not... but what I was talking about is ease of learning. With metatrader, the help is comprehensive and easy to use... there is a Dictionary too so you can quickly browse and find what you need. In NT it takes me far longer to find what I need in the help. Multiply that by the fact that a novice will be looking everything up and you can see why I think metatrader takes the cake for ease of use to learn something.

ALSO

NT is a bitch when it comes to adding new parameters/inputs. If you were organized enough to know every input you would need when you ran the wizard, that's great... but... sometimes that's not possible so it has to be added by hand... and for a novice might be difficult to figure out. Ninjatrader does have good response to questions on their forums, but do you really want to be asking questions about everything? And forget about adding a new plot if you didn't do it in the wizard. I'm sure it is possible, but seemed complicated and easier just to run the wizard again on a new indicator and move your code to it. Seems rather sloppy way to do something.

Now NT is more powerful because of the C# base... and I believe that (from the docs) seems like the multi-time frame support for strategies is good. Don't think you can do that in MT4 but I didn't try and haven't used MT4 much for years.

So I still stand by statement that MT4 is much easier to learn to use. With ninjatrader I'm always hunting for something - even though I spend more time programming ninjatrader these days than MT4, when I tried to write something in MT4 recently, I found it was fast to find whatever I needed to know.

About forums, I recommend forex-tsd but metaquotes is good for searching for answers. Also I'm sure there are ton of other forums with MT4 sections to ask questions in.

anyhow my recommendations were about ease of use to learn to make simple things... I doubt a novice programmer intends to program an extremely complicated EA.

btw. how am I supposed to debug in ninjatrader? I looked it up just now in the help and it says I need Visual Studio installed. sounds like installing a couple gigs of software just to debug NT is overkill... is there another way? If nothing is built into NT are there any other alternative debuggers I can install?
I guess I should also mention I program for a living, running up Visual Studio is an easy option for me, littering my program with print statements seems like going back to the bad old days for me, I don't really use the wizard in NT apart from generating the file, adding inputs etc seemed easy to me but as I said, I'm quite proficient in C#, so I guess it all depends on your level of programming ability.
The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
  • #15
  • Jun 22, 2008 3:26pm Jun 22, 2008 3:26pm
Quoting Craig
I should be more specific, it allows me to use Interactive Brokers, who do everything and are dirt cheap on commission.
oh yeah, I forgot about IB. They are good.
  • #16
  • Jun 22, 2008 3:30pm Jun 22, 2008 3:30pm
Quoting Craig
I guess I should also mention I program for a living, running up Visual Studio is an easy option for me, littering my program with print statements seems like going back to the bad old days for me, I don't really use the wizard in NT apart from generating the file, adding inputs etc seemed easy to me but as I said, I'm quite proficient in C#, so I guess it all depends on your level of programming ability.
yes it is easy once you get the hang of it... but it still not easy for a beginner I would think... you gotta type too much in too many places. Adding plots though I still can't figure out how to easily do it, not that I tried much.

so I guess there is no other option than visual studio for debugging? it is easy enough to litter with print statements, so really debugger is just a luxury for my purposes. I used to program for a living but I do not like to have visual studio installed because I will be tempted to do some more programming
  • #17
  • Jun 22, 2008 4:32pm Jun 22, 2008 4:32pm
Quoting ycomp
yes it is easy once you get the hang of it... but it still not easy for a beginner I would think... you gotta type too much in too many places. Adding plots though I still can't figure out how to easily do it, not that I tried much.

so I guess there is no other option than visual studio for debugging? it is easy enough to litter with print statements, so really debugger is just a luxury for my purposes. I used to program for a living but I do not like to have visual studio installed because I will be tempted to do some more programming
lol I used to program for a living too, simple Print statements with the output window are usually good enough for anything you will write in NT, we're not writing high end software here lol
  • #18
  • Last Post: Jun 22, 2008 5:47pm Jun 22, 2008 5:47pm
Quoting fxRichard
lol I used to program for a living too, simple Print statements with the output window are usually good enough for anything you will write in NT, we're not writing high end software here lol
it is true, however I have made one or 2 really complex indicators... where debugger could've been useful.
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