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Non-technical people have unrealistic expectations from programmers, it's sometimes a blurry line between a bug and a change. Sometimes you get what you ask for and it doesn't work.
It is the programmers job to define scope and ensure that the non-technical person understands what they get but still some people want the moon.
I had one guy over on T2W. He asked me to look @ some code for him. I got the code and replied that at least 4 other people had sent me the same code, it wasn't what he thought it was. Shortly afterwards, he started sending me shitty and then threatening emails saying he's expose me as a fraud on T2W if I didn't make changes he needed.
I told him, I'd been sent this stuff before - it was basically a bunch of stuff involving Excel that a number of people had sent to me, claiming they'd got it from a quant at some investment house. I told him it was bunk, that the calculations in it were based on presumptions of buying daily lows and selling daily highs.
He carried on, accusing me of stealing his strategy and that if I didn't turn it into a Tradestation EasyLanguage script, he's expose me immediately.
Now - note that I'd told him I'd look at it for free, that I had no intention of charging him for this if it worked, why would I? I could run it myself.
So - then he started running around T2W calling me a thief and a fraud and generally making a tit of himself.
Funny thing is - he then emailed me again telling me that this would continue unless I did what he asked. I contacted T2W showing the emails and they banned him.
1 - Software development is very tough from both customer and developer viewpoints. Requirements get confused and customers often think the developed will be at their disposal forever.
2 - Threads like this permanently break the relationship between the developer and the customer. This relationship is now completely broken.
I get people asking me to do bespoke coding work all the time. I used to do it for free. Now I never do it, not after that one guy.
Hellow Power Broker, reading your post, I realise that, I am not the only one who realised that. The thing is, that more people should be aware about this. The problem now is that Ninja Trader doesn't have competition and we are stucked to them.
I am thinking to not buy Ninja Trader, simply because those b*st*rds do not desrve money with their attitude. Rithimic is a very nice platform and maybe I will develope an add-on to rithmic or maybe a tool which connects to it using Rithmic Api, we will see ..
Well, it is not my case. I trade for a living from 2 years and I perfectly know what I am doing! The script just has to do a jobe which I can not do anymore, because it is very difficult and very stressful! Tipicaly, he made everything I want, and to be honest I was very happy to see my idea becoming an automated reality!
The problems is, that the script just makes 2 errors, which the developer couldn´t fix! One of them, is that it closes(sometimes, not every time) my position right after it has been opened. I already used the script, and because of the error it makes sometimes, the results from 4 trade so far are two wins, 1 loss and 1 breakeven instead of 3 wins and 1 loss. The breakeven should be a winner, but it did the error and closed my position earlier, so I couldn´t get my profit.
It is in his obligation to fix it! The thing is that he doesn´t know how, or as Mark Whiting says, the problem could be in the core of the strategy. Maybe he has been used managed orders, instead of unamanged, but to be honest it is not my problem .. It is his job to decide what kind of orders to use in order my sript to work.
Mark perfectly knew, that only unmanaged should be used for my strategy and he gave me a quote of 21 hour of work, while Tyler Moore gave me 7 or so .. but how could I know in advance that it will not work ? He promissed me a money back guarantee, so why should I be bothered, but he didn´t fulfil his promise ...
Well put, this is why I definately don't recommend people contracting out services for a Strategy. The coder will code what they were asked but the Strategy may not work as expected. The customers expectation is the code will work, and the coder needs to keep going until they fix it so it is profitable. The issue might be the concept doesn't work in practice but in theory. Bots are new to the masses, so there are many things that can go wrong.
There are many of us out there looking for a great bot, and still looking. I would say now, there are bots that do well during certain days but fail on others. There are a few ultra concervative Bots that might be safe in the long run, but profits a commenserate to risk.
When you go to Ninja for a recommendation you are taking a big risk, I have always felt uncomfortable with that processes but sometimes you take a chance. I have purchased many things from Amazon from private sellers and have only been ripped of once so I put it down to experience, will it ever happen again, possibly.
There are some really good people on this site such as Fat Tails, Silvester17, Gomi, Zondor, Cory, Dionysus Toast, TimeTrade, etc to name just a few so maybe you could get one these guys from the futures.io (formerly BMT) community to help in future endeavours.
Thing is Trafford - getting someone to write software for you is like buying a used car.
You REALLY need to have someone experienced along to check things out.
The developer should be responsible for maintaining the expectations and getting them signed off - but a lot of them are just young pups thinking they can turn their nerdy coding skills into $$$$.
It takes people skills to develop software the customer wants...
