MQL4 / MQL5 intro needed, where do i find a SIMPLE guide?

Hello!

First: shall i skip MQL4 at all and move to MQL5 ?

Second: the MQL4 language is not very intuitive to me.
I am an experienced coder in non fx related languages.

I found ´my first EA´ for MT4 somewhere on the net,
modified it and got stuck rather quickly.

I just wanted to code something like:

  If last third, fourth and fifth time frame price distance to EMA is greater than X pips
  and current price is crossing EMA than SELL something.

Got various error messages and found no way to do a step by step analysis what the code is calculating.
Same for error catching by executing the SELL command.

Do you have any links, any advice or better Google search terms?

Hey,

There is MQL4.com... I guess some of programmers will help out out even for some MQL5 issues.

Anyway I would not create an EA with MQL5 as Hedging is forbidden with this new crap version.

Hey there,
I saw your private message so I thought I could try to be of some help.

First: Personally, I prefer MQL4; there are far more resources and open-source codes available for MQL4. As well, more brokers support it and will continue to as well. Likewise there are some great APIs available to send signals to other platforms as well, such as Interactive Brokers, Dukascopy/jForex, etc.

HOWEVER, MQL5 is a much more feature-packed language - so the decision really should be based on the requirements of your program. For instance, MQL5 can handle multi-threading, but MQL4 cannot. This is a problem I've had to work around as my personal program uses A LOT of processing power and running it quick enough in a single thread is very difficult.

Second: The compiler sucks and it is indeed very difficult to pinpoint errors, but that's the reality of the platform unfortunately.
My primary source for MQL information is the MQL4.com forum. So, my standard Google search is:

'bla bla bla site:mql4.com'

This narrows results to those coming from mql4.com. Also, I find that the Russian MQL4 site tends to have better information and more talented programmers - I usually find answers to more complex problems there. So you can narrow that search using

'site:forum.mql4.com/ru/'

Then you can translate results to English using:

https://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=https://forum.mql4.com/ru/BLA_BLA_BLA
^ Obviously fill in the 'u=' parameter with the Russian forum link.

I recommend, to start, go to https://codebase.mql4.com and in the Expert Advisers section you will see a bunch of free codes in MQ4 format. Look through ones that have similar styles that you would like to make and learn how they are structured. I personally learned the most from reverse engineering others' codes.

Hes telling the truth. MT4 is the most comon to use, BUT, The back testing on multiple processors is a very big deal for effective testing and speed. MT5 can back test fast..perhaps 500% faster and thats very important, esp if your using long time frames ( 12 mionths to 8 years) . You cant make any money with a poor trading EA that fails back testing or takes forever back testing. The code isnt the same on mt5 as with mt4, most programmers cant do both languages. Choose only one and stay with it. I run 3 computers using mt4 for back testing and on each one I will have 3 to 12 mt4 plaforms running. The few mt5 eas (from public mt5 forums can be tested quickly and over very long time frams) without over heatiing your pc.

My current hand built EA can not be back tested at all. It uses mulitple currenclys and neg correlation trading as well as antimartingle. Not even Mt5 can back test it. Program your EA with what you know and test it for errors and save each time you make small changes. Its a very long hard and expensive road to success in forex. AND keep a paper log in a note book.

j4byers posted:

I recommend, to start, go to https://codebase.mql4.com and in the Expert Advisers section you will see a bunch of free codes in MQ4 format. Look through ones that have similar styles that you would like to make and learn how they are structured. I personally learned the most from reverse engineering others' codes.

'bla bla bla site:mql4.com'

'site:forum.mql4.com/ru/'

Thanks, i prefer to learn from reverse engineering, but stopped it after five EA samples,
hoping there is a more structured intro somewhere.

Thanks for the idea to translate Russian results, despite online translations often deliver quirky outputs, i will try this!

I was asking for a better search term than ´bla bla´, i know the site filter but good point to the russian search!