1) Seeing your code do what you told it to do, regardless of whether it makes you any money, is one of the most satisfying experiences I know. 2) And seeing your code f*up is a reality check. Good for the soul. And debugging can be an adventure in itself. 3) Your mind is expanded. 4) You learn to think logically. 5) Maybe you get a job because of it, maybe not. But why should you not learn something new?
I agree that for day traders, automating their process can be very helpful. However, I speak to a fair number of programmers and math experts, looking to code an equity or futures strategy with little or no knowledge of market structure and little or no trading experience. They think they can make money because they can code. The strategy has to come first. Finding a process to make money must come first. I would suggest that to much time and effort learning coding takes time away from a process to make money which is vastly more important.
Good points but learning how to write code properly will come handy when you need it. But in the end it is a tool to achieve the goal, many programmers underestimate the effort required to learn trading, this is why they fail. Perhaps it's because they are generally intelligent and work in a highly paid field, ego starts working against them.
Pretty much everyone here can code as all seem to be IT people that want out, including me. It was fun, writing games on a C64 in 6502 assembly language back in 1985, but these days uggggg.
what's the process to make money? from what i have seen, without programming and math you can't formulate and express a strategy.
The question is too open. My point is that for most, it makes no sense to program a strategy that loses money. For those that want to manipulate data, you need to program to do that, but that does not mean you have to automate trading.
Or the Timex-Sinclair 1000 with 16K memory module and cassette recorder storage, BASIC and Z-80 assembly/machine code. Had to stick the machine code into a REM Statement.
Lol ... True. Coding for fun is not the same as coding to make a living. I guess same as trading in a way.