A name change, and a great offer from Ikon Royal

May 25th, 2009

Hi Everyone,

Earlier last week a member who had registered on the early notification list spoke to me, and she expressed her wish that I should discuss general matters in relation to MT4 also in the newsletter. My response was that I will discuss those general MT4 matters also.

Her suggestion was that I should change the name from “EA Tutorials and Tips” to “MT4 Tutorials and Tips”, which then would better reflect the meaning of the newsletters, the emails, and the blogs.

I agreed entirely with her and therefore I have already renamed the newsletter to:

 

The “MT4 Tutorials and Tips” newsletter

 

You might have already seen that on some of my web pages and emails that I have send out, but I haven’t done so on this blog (as a matter of fact I have first to find out how to do that….. :)

Thanks for that suggestion to that member, who shall remain nameless for privacy reasons. I like the new name very much, and even better than the old one.

Also, the doors are now open to the subscription page, and I look forward to you joining your fellow traders, wannebe programmers and me on this interesting journey into the land of MT4 coding. Please go to the subscription page to read all about it. You will find a range of benefits that you will receive from becoming a subscriber.

A major benefit has been offered to you by Ikon Royal. By opening an account of at least $5,000 and by trading a minimum of 15 standard lots a month you will obtain the following benefits:

1.      Ikon Royal will pay for your monthly subscription, and

2.      You will be placed on the Institutional Price Feed. This alone is already worth its weight in gold. For example you will have 1 – 2 pips spread on the majors instead of 2 – 3 pips.

This offer will save you at least US$175 a month, which is US$2,100 a year. How is that for a fabulous offer?

So please go to the subscription page, and subscribe straight away before the subscription price rises. We are still in the pre-launch period, so you can have all the benefits, and I will also send you the “BID, ASK, and SPREAD” indicator together with the subscription bonus. The page is at http://mt4-tutorials.com/mt4-newsltrsbscr.html

We will have indeed very exciting times ahead of us.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Cheers, and to our American friends: Have a memorable and happy Memorial Day on Monday May 25th.

Best regards.

Ronald.

 

Posted in EA Tutorials, Expert Advisor coding, FX trading, MT4 Tutorials, MT4 coding | 2 Comments »

Learning a new Language. Part 3 of 3

May 20th, 2009

In the first 2 issues of this blog topic I discussed the 6 issues related to learning a new language out of a total of 10 tips. These 6 issues discussed so far were:

#1: Learn another language

#2: Learn advanced search techniques, tactics, and strategies, and

#3: Help others.

#4: Be patient and keep practicing

#5: Leave your dogmas at the door

#6: Learn a few advanced ideas in-depth

This week I will continue with the final 4 issues: 

 

#7: Learn the basic theories underlying your field

It’s one thing to write “Hello World,” but it’s another to understand how the words appear on the screen. And for what MT4 is concerned, you can take a manual trade, but it is entirely different to execute a trade from within an EA. By learning the “groundwork” that supports the work you do, you will become much better at it. Why? Because you will understand why things work the way they do, what might be wrong when things are not written correctly, and so on. You will become better by learning what happens at a lower level than your work.

If you are a MT4 plug-in writer, read and study the “EA Tutorials and Tips” newsletters, and any reference material that I will mention. Look at the code that is presented and try to understand every single command and instruction. This will develop the groundwork for becoming an experienced MT4 programmer.

 

#8: Look at senior developers’ code

When writing MT4 code, take a look at the code others have written and if you don’t understand certain code sections just ask the author how and why things were done a particular way. Even if other coders don’t have the best coding habits, you’ll learn a lot about how the code is written. Be careful not to pick up bad habits along the way. The idea here isn’t to just blindly imitate what other coders are doing; it’s to get an idea of what works and what makes sense and try to imitate it. Your own MT4 coding technics will improve by leaps and bounds.

 

#9: Learn good habits

Nothing marks an inexperienced coder like stupid variable names, poor indentation habits, and other signs of being sloppy. All too often, a coder learned how to program without being taught the less interesting details such as code formatting — and it shows. Even though learning these things will not always make your code better or you a better MT4 coder, it will ensure that your peers do not view you as an entry-level coder. Even if someone is a experienced coder, when variables are named after their 97 cats or their functions are called “doSomething(),” they look like they do not know what they are doing, and it makes their code harder to maintain in the process.

 

#10: Have fun

Writing your own EAs, Indicators, Scripts, and Library files can be very rewarding. You don’t have to divulge your trading system to others to get your own requirements build into a profitable EA. It will be very satisfying when you see your trading balance growing using your own EA. An EA that you fully understand, which is not a black box, and is unique. You will have fun developing it, testing it, and debugging it, and finally you will reap all the fruits of your labour.

 

What it takes to move up in the trading business and in the eyes of your peers is not merely determined by bringing home an ever growing trading account balance but an actual enjoyment of being a trader, a MT4 coder, and being able to help others. If you love trading great! I guarantee that you can become a better trader and mentor when you also become a great MT4 coder if you keep at it.

 

 

 

This is it. Just various tips on how to improve your skills learning a new language and in this case the MQL4 programming language.

 

Soon the emails will be send out to our registered members to inform them all of the opening of the subscription page.

 

This 3-part article was created using the original article from Justin James, which was published on the TechRepublic site. Justin should get all the credits for this article. I have taken the liberty to modify the article to make it suitable to learning the MQL4 programming code.

Till my next blog. Happy programming (if you already know what to do), and above all success with your trading.

Ronald.

 

Posted in EA Tutorials, Expert Advisor coding, FX trading, MT4 Tutorials, MT4 coding | 1 Comment »

Learning a new Language. Part 2 of 3

May 18th, 2009

Last week I discussed the first 3 issues related to learning a new language out of a total of 10 tips. These first 3 issues were:

#1: Learn another language

#2: Learn advanced search techniques, tactics, and strategies, and

#3: Help others.

 

This week we will continue with the next 3 issues: 

 

#4: Be patient and keep practicing

Research has shown that it takes many years (sometimes up to 10) to become a real expert in a certain field. That’s a long time. Furthermore, becoming an expert does not always mean doing the same task for 10 years over and over again; it often means doing a wide variety of tasks within a particular domain for 10 years. It will take a lot of time and energy to become an “expert”; as it is not enough to work in your chosen field for a few years, however, it is important to start your education/training sooner rather then later, or be willing to do a lot of work, reading, and practicing in your spare time. I started programming at uni, and I devoted a lot of after-hours to keep up on the various languages in the industry. I also completed my thesis using special software techniques for the steel foundry industry I was working in at that time. As a result, I became hooked on software writing and have been so for the last 28 years, and still loving it. But remember the saying: Practise makes perfect. You have to start once, at now is as good a time as ever. So make the most of it.

 

 #5: Leave your dogmas at the door

Time for some brutal honesty: Beginner developers probably don’t know enough to state that there is One Best Way of doing something. It’s fine to respect the opinion of a friend or an authority figure, but until you are more experienced, don’t claim their opinions as your own. The simple fact is, if you don’t know enough to figure these things out on your own, what makes you think that you know which “expert” is right? I know this sounds really harsh, but please believe me; I have met far too many software writers who had their development set back years because they got hung up on some foolish piece of advice or followed some “expert” who really didn’t know what they were talking about. For example, many beginners read or hear something and will hang up on it for ever, as if it is the best thing since sliced bread.

 

#6: Learn a few advanced ideas in-depth

Much of what goes into being an intermediate MT4 developer is having a few concepts that you are really good at working with in code. For me, it is regular usage of functions to eliminate code duplications, and how to use Global Variables. How did this happen? From creating EAs for others, and the need for intergration of the execution of one EA into another. I read some articles about it, thought it sounded interesting, and figured it out on my own; I keep writing EAs that use those techniques. Also, I ended up writing my own EAs with templates and from there the idea of the newsletter was born.

Find something that has you really hooked. We will discuss various ideas in the newsletter which will help you in this matter. Even if you’re an entry-level MT4 developer, try to become an expert in at least one area of focus. This will get you into that intermediate level quite quickly, and once there, you will be halfway to become an expert.

This is it again for now. The next 4 and final issues are:

#7: Learn the basic theories underlying your field
#8: Look at senior developers’ code
#9: Learn good habits
#10: Have fun.

and will be tomorrow in our next blog.

Till then, happy programming (if you already know what to do), and above all success with your trading.

Ronald.

 

Posted in EA Tutorials, Expert Advisor coding, FX trading, MT4 coding | No Comments »

Learning a new language. Part 1 of 3

May 14th, 2009

Recently I read an article describing 10 tips of learning a new computer development language. It was very appropriate to the issues related to the new “EA Tutorial and Tips” newsletter in which you will learn a new computer language.

I have therefore taken that article and split it into 3 parts. I will discuss first three tips, followed by another 3 tips on the next blog, and close off with 4 tips in the last part. Hope you can relate to the issues that will be discussed.

The original article was written by Justin James and was published on the TechRepublic site. Justin should get all the credits for this article. I have taken the liberty to give you a synopsis related to learning MT4. 

 

#1: Learn another language

It doesn’t matter what you learn, but learning will improve your personal development. This relates to learning another vocal language (like French, German, Spanish,etc.), playing a new instrument, or a new computer language code. It is even better to learn something that is significantly different from what you already know, and use on a regular basis. In other words, and related to the computer code, if you know already how to write VB or C#, learning how to write MT4 code will help you very much in your personal development and it will be complementing your understanding of EA-trading.

When I say “learn another language,” I mean really learn it. Learning a computer language consists of three realms of knowledge: the syntax, the built-in operators and libraries, and “how to use it.” The first two are easy; I think that anyone can pick up enough of a language’s syntax to start coding in a few hours depending upon the language. You can always use a syntax listing to help you, and MT4 has a full range of syntaxes in its Navigator window. The operators and libraries are just a matter of slowly accumulating knowledge and being willing to check reference materials until you memorize what you need to know. But it’s the third item — “how to use it” — that can only be learned over months of working with the new MT4 coding language and that’s where the real magic happens. I suggest doing an indicataor project followed by an EA will teach you soon the basic requirements. 

I’m sure that when you learn a computer coding language, your abilities as a MT4 developer will start to blossom.

 

#2: Learn advanced search techniques, tactics, and strategies

Simply put, new languages are too large for most people to remember much of all the new syntaxes, structures, commands, etc. As a result, your ability to get work done is often dependent upon your ability to perform research. Unfortunately, knowing how to find accurate, high-quality information is more than just heading to the Navigator window for the answer or typing a few words into your favourite search engine.

The techniques you need to learn are the advanced search systems of your favorite search engine; you need to learn things such as the Boolean operators, how to filter results.

You should learn tactics such as knowing how to interpret your particular search results and knowing what you should be actually looking for. Runtime errors are easy — just look for the error code — but keyword selection on many searches is more difficult. And MT4 debugging is an entire subject on its own.

With regard to strategies, you need to learn things such as what search engines to use (hint: general purpose search engines are not always the right answer when looking for specific MT4 problems, you better use the search facility on the MQL site), which sites to visit before going to a general purpose search engine, and even which message boards to post to for help. The Yahoo MT4 EA & Indicator Group is a fabulous forum.

 

#3: Help others

Teaching others is one of the best ways to learn things yourself. It is understandable to think that you don’t have much to offer because you are relatively new to the MT4 code. However, remember, everything you know already you learned from someone or somewhere; so try being the someone that another person can learn from. Spend a few minutes a day trying to answer some questions on the Yahoo MQ4 EA & Indicator Group, or another forum, as best you can. You can also learn a lot by reading other forum member’s answers.

This is it for now. The next 3 issues:
#4: Be patient and keep practicing
#5: Leave your dogmas at the door
#6: Learn a few advanced ideas in-depth
will be in the next blog.

Till then, and happy programming (if you already know what to do), and above all success with your trading.

Ronald.

Posted in EA Tutorials, Expert Advisor coding, MT4 coding | No Comments »

Newsletter Introduction!

April 19th, 2009

Hi to all my fellow traders and MT4 programmers,

Hi, and welcome to my “EA Tutorials and Tips” blog. It is an extension of my “EA Tutorials and Tips” newsletter where I will be highlighting the topics that have been discussed.

I hope that it will entice you to also become a subscriber and member of the traders group that would like to enhance their MT4 code writing skills.

The first edition will be issued in the first week of June, and some general topics will be discussed, such as: EA structure, required procedures, general set-up, and proper close of an EA. Further more issues related to indicators, EAs, and scripts will be addressed.

You can of course submit any question you have regarding any of these comments, which will then be dealt with in the “Question and Answer Bulletin” that will be issues as an additional issue in between the release of the next newsletter.

The newsletters as well as the Q&A Bulletins will have sufficient code samples for you to start creating your own MT4 plug-ins. To insert your own trading strategy, you have to work out the strategy and its requirements, and we will describe how you can insert them into your own EA.

The beauty of it all is that you don’t have to reveale your strategy to anyone else. Apart from keeping your intellectual property to yourself, you will save yourself heap of money by not having to outsource the creation of your EA.

How is that for a great benefit?

Hope to hear from you soon via the notification page on http://www.eatutorials.com 

Speak to you soon, and success with your trading.
 

Ronald.
CEO
Forex MetaSoft.
EA Tutorials

 

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in EA Tutorials, MT4 coding | 10 Comments »