I am a software developer and I understand your motivations completely. Hopefully my experience will help you. We as developers want something deterministic and concrete in order to engage with the markets. The markets, however, don't behave that way. The sooner you come to grips with that fact the happier you will be. We are dealing with a probabilistic environment and no set of rules, no matter how complex will take care of all scenarios, so the name of the game is taking asymmetric trades where the downside risks and the upside rewards are tilted in your favor. The reason most developers cannot make money in the markets is we are looking for something that gives us certainty which cannot be had. There is no algo. that will work hands off all the time in every environment.
Having said that we can use our skills to overcome a lot of the human biases that can get us in trouble. Start with automating small parts of the process. For instance, if you are having trouble hanging on to a trade long enough? Automate the exit process with a trailing stop while you enter it yourself and then walk away. Taking emotional trades due to FOMO? Specify exactly what scenarios will make you enter and make sure you algo doesn't let you execute unless all checks are a go. Fear of entering the market? Execute the algo when the context is correct and then walk away and let your algo enter the trade.
The point is, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Automate small parts and over time you will have something that will work like your assistant and helping you succeed.
The best of both worlds. Have executive control with your superior human intuition and let the algo take care of the emotional side that is preventing you from success.
Don't get too much in the weeds about what language or platform to use. Use whatever you're most comfortable with and will get you going fast. Believe me, you can end up spending years and many dollars and sleepless nights over this.
Good luck.
Having said that we can use our skills to overcome a lot of the human biases that can get us in trouble. Start with automating small parts of the process. For instance, if you are having trouble hanging on to a trade long enough? Automate the exit process with a trailing stop while you enter it yourself and then walk away. Taking emotional trades due to FOMO? Specify exactly what scenarios will make you enter and make sure you algo doesn't let you execute unless all checks are a go. Fear of entering the market? Execute the algo when the context is correct and then walk away and let your algo enter the trade.
The point is, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Automate small parts and over time you will have something that will work like your assistant and helping you succeed.
The best of both worlds. Have executive control with your superior human intuition and let the algo take care of the emotional side that is preventing you from success.
Don't get too much in the weeds about what language or platform to use. Use whatever you're most comfortable with and will get you going fast. Believe me, you can end up spending years and many dollars and sleepless nights over this.
Good luck.
