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Personally, I have never had much luck with programmers who weren't extremely talented AND also very experienced, knowledgable traders themselves. Hard combo to find but well worth the effort. A coder of that caliber can spot weaknesses in your system and also offer helpful improvement advice. If the system isn't overly complicated or subjective, some good coders will probably do it for free.
Your methodology needs to be very mechanical. You can't code gut feeling guesswork. I think you'll find that 99.9% of coded strategies just don't hold up...if they ever work at all...so be prepared. Hope you hit the jackpot with it so good luck and keep us posted.
On the other side, as a coder/trader, I found it is very hard to have good customer, who really know what he wants, is able to explain it clearly (in less than 20 emails), don't change his mind every two days, and wants to do something doable. I had some customers who wanted strategies which has to know the future (a bit hard to code ), who wants a strategy which just mimics another vendor strategy, with only a screen shot, ... I have few dozens of examples like this. Like the guy who has 50 parameters in his strategy, and, as he is not happy with the results, wants to "add another filter, but this is the last one". Another example is the customer who is happy after the first versions of his strat/indic, and just want a very small modification, then another, then is not happy with the result, or finally asks something impossible. At the end, in these cases, the coder spent a dozen of hours, for nothing...
I'm sure it's harder to find a good client than a good coder !!!
Is it something you feel is proprietary and you don't want posted in a public forum? If so, then maybe you might need a coder that does that for a living.
If it's not, you could always start a post in a section, and I'm sure someone will lend a hand.
Had to chuckle at that one, Sam028 because it is so true. Traders will fool around and come up with an idea that looks like it performed pretty good on Mondays and Wednesdays of months that don't have a "Y" in them. So they find a coder like yourself and go back and forth on rules and infinite nuances and exceptions. You get coded into oblivion and, when completed, they are stunned that the system would have lost the farm every year since the Civil War.
Then, get set for round two as the "filters" start to roll in. Makes me glad I'm not a programmer.....LOL.
I have to say as someone that has done custom programming for customers for over 11 years, and in Ninjasript for 2 years, I do understand and have experienced just about everything you mention here, but have found ways to mitigate the risks/annoyances. The key for any project like this is to define success and manage expectations. Success does not equal "I code a strategy that allows you to retire in 2 years," rather, it is "did I implement what you asked for?" Often, they're not sure what they're asking for, so you help them figure it out, perhaps even for an "architectural" fee otherwise you go round and round with them until both of you are dizzy. If they change their mind or want something different, then it's a software change request and costs extra $. It's just like writing any other software.
The problem I think you are referring to is due to so much "free" code out there, or a site that sells an indicator for $49, it sets the expectation that they will only pay $49 for their custom coded request, or get it for free from a forum post request. And they might, but probably not.
After a while you can tell if it's going to be worth your while or not pretty early on and you walk away from the project/client if you don't think it'll be worth your time.
I beg to differ with your comment. I don't think your methodology needs to be VERY mechanical. It all depends on the basic premises at the base of your framework. Programming emotive decisions is not that complicated if you know a few basic concepts. We were doing this kind of programming back in 2000 using a very basic language named Lingo from Macromedia. I cooperated with a very creative person on coding such intelligent scripts to mimic the way we think. Some examples are located here: