Testing of EA's

[fishman]

Why can developers of EA's not let users download EA' for a limited period of time, say a month, whereafter the EA expires and becomes unoperable. With a method like this users can then see whether the system is for them or not.

The other possibility is to couple it to a demo account number, which cannot be used for a live account.

By doing it this way you will get to know which are the genuine developers.

[oilfxpro]

Originally Posted by fishman

Why can developers of EA's not let users download EA' for a limited period of time, say a month, whereafter the EA expires and becomes unoperable. With a method like this users can then see whether the system is for them or not.

The other possibility is to couple it to a demo account number, which cannot be used for a live account.

By doing it this way you will get to know which are the genuine developers.

Fishman

There are thieves looking for expert advisors posted on message board.They obtain them for free from message boards and decompile them for$20 ,then they clone them and resell them under a different name

A proper expert advisor is worth around $50,000 plus ,who wants to give it for free on message boards

OILFXPRO

[zupcon]

I agree 100% with El Cid, you really cant allow anyone to get their hands on an EA or indicator due to the decompiling problem. Until Metatrader addresses this problem MT is a non starter for serious developers.

You also have the problem with customers requesting multiple trial periods. If people realy must sell EA's the fairest solution is possibly for the customer to pay for a trial period, and the supplier to discount the cost of the trial from any future purchase.

Personally I cant understand why anyone would ever have the need to sell an EA. Developers often claim that they have insufficient capital to trade, and whilst I can understand that, they could of course trade for others under a power of attorney agreement, and retain control of their intellectual property, and make considerably more money with far less effort.

If you flip the argument around, I cant see why anyone would ever actually BUY an EA ! when they also could allow a trader to manage their funds under a power of attorney agreement and pay only for positive results !.

Buying an EA makes no sense, the purchaser has no understanding of the methodology, so they dont know if it's working or not, they have no idea if the software has been correctly implimented, and they get the hasle of making sure the EA is actually running without actually understanding what the EA is supposed to be doing. You'd have to be as mad as a march hare to even consider purchasing one of these things.

[oilfxpro]

Zupcon

Would be buyers should gain access to real money trading account before buying the expert advisor.They should monitor the real account for at least a month and ask the seller for logic.They should not expect to buy a decent expert advisor for less than $2,000 and maybe more.

OILFXPRO

[oilfxpro]

Originally Posted by fishman

Why can developers of EA's not let users download EA' for a limited period of time, say a month, whereafter the EA expires and becomes unoperable. With a method like this users can then see whether the system is for them or not.

The other possibility is to couple it to a demo account number, which cannot be used for a live account.

By doing it this way you will get to know which are the genuine developers.

Fishman

What u may not realise is the smartest thieves of expert advisors are the testers.On various forums they act as professional testers and these testers are in the know and know all the forum admins.

A programmer often gets the benefit of using a good expert advisor but he has to code a lot of expert advisors , before he pinches one from a client and sells it on.

But the tester does no work and steals cleverly.Many developers have been cheated of their source codes

OILFXPRO

[zupcon]

Originally Posted by oilfxpro

Fishman

What u may not realise is the smartest thieves of expert advisors are the testers.

<snip>

But the tester does no work and steals cleverly.Many developers have been cheated of their source codes

OILFXPRO

I dont really have much sympathy. The "testers" wouldnt have the faintest idea how to actually design and impliment a test plan, and therefore their input is of no value at all. Actually their input tends to bring additional confusion rather than clarifiction, and thats why any serious developer doesnt need to waste their time involving these idiots.

Even more alarmingly, I have yet to see any developer or a public forum impose a test plan on the "testers", which pretty much indicates the level of expertese these people are working at. On the odd occasion that people have tried to impose any sort of order on testers, they've failed quite miserably.

Unless the EA is so poorly implimented that its basic functionality is in question, and the developer needs people to point out basic flaws, I really do fail to see the point of asking a bunch of people to run an EA and report results.

But it gives them something to do, and keeps them off the streets and out of trouble, which is a good thing, so we should not be complaining