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The Process of Testing Your Expert Advisor
The initial version of an Expert Advisor almost never comes out as a final, polished product. While the programmers do test the product, a difference exists between running an EA on backtests versus using the file in real life.
Almost all software companies hire a quality assurance engineer to test software. That profession exists for a reason. Testing software takes a lot of work.
Many of our customers are retail forex traders seeking to keep costs down. The most obvious way to reduce cost is to have you, the customer, do the testing.
Even the most trivial EAs usually require several hours of testing to find the little bugs. You are also probably not a quality assurance engineer, and thus not comfortable explaining what exactly doesn't work. We fully expect that you are inexperienced communicating software concepts or problems and reflect that in the estimated time.
The customer is the only person that can fully communicate the requirements and verify that the software we produce matches the scope of work. Therefore, that person has to do real work. You should expect to spend a significant amount of time verifying that the software functions as intended and sending documentation.
A defined process exists for communicating Expert Advisor issues. Most novices report general issues such as the "trailling stop does not work properly". Whenever these types of issues arise, expect the project manager to ask for MetaTrader log files, screen shots and an written overview of the problem. Although the problem may appear obvious, that is probably not the case for the person on the receiving end of the information. The process aims to reverse engineer your thought process, which in turn leads to the clearest description of the problem. The process also involves some degree of computer literacy on the part of the customer.
Ironing out the bugs, great and small, takes anywhere from 2-4+ weeks from the date of delivery. Some of that stems from our need to communicate consistently with all customers. Some of it results from waiting for the market to do something that causes the Expert Advisor to act incorrectly.
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