if you have to ask the question, I would say, don't bother. If you were keen, you would have grabbed a book from the library and started experimenting with programming. You would have gauged your ability by your progress, and know if you are in the game or not. I would say, concentrate your precious time on developing your tradingn system and implementation strategy, and leave the nitty gritty of programming to the professionals. You'd be much further ahead by the end of the day.
mBay if you want to learn a programming langauge then sure, VB is a good starting point... if you want to learn to program so that you can test strategies, then get tradestation and learn EasyLanguage It is easy to learn a programming language, all have similar constructs, like variables, conditional logic, loops ...etc What is differenct is the library that comes with the language. With VB, you don't have the library that is needed for testing trading strategies... for example in EasyLanguage if you want to define then high of a bar, all you say is High, and the high of previous bar is simply High[1]. In VB, you will need to create or find a library to do that. If you want to create a MACD indicator, in EasyLanguage, it's just MACD(...), and in VB, you will need another library to do that... I guess you get the picture... EasyLanguage is becoming the standard to describe trading strategies, not because it's powerful, but because it has an extensive library solely for trading purpose. If I were you, I would skip the VB all together and just learn easy langauge. You can do almost any research you want with EL... but being experienced in other programming language certainly helps the learning of EL...
Speaking of VB and my coding issues of today... how do you determine the size of a dynamic array? Not bytes, but entries?
If you want to use a general purpose programing language, there are free libraries available eg http://www.ta-lib.org is pretty comprehensive, and can be used with Excel, .NET, Java, Perl, Python or C/C++.
I am also facing the problem (as a non-programmer) of how to develop strategies and systems and then backtest them. Most of what you guys discussed earlier went over my head. While I wouldn't object to knowing how to program, I'm trying to focus all my efforts on trading, so a means to an end seems to be most efficient. But if I have to learn something tangential, I want it to be the most useful and long-lasting something. In the end, would most of you pretty much agree with the statement: "EasyLanguage is becoming the standard to describe trading strategies, not because it's powerful, but because it has an extensive library solely for trading purpose" if you want to learn to program so that you can test strategies, then get tradestation and learn EasyLanguage With VB, you don't have the library that is needed for testing trading strategies... for example in EasyLanguage if you want to define then high of a bar, all you say is High, and the high of previous bar is simply High[1]. In VB, you will need to create or find a library to do that. If you want to create a MACD indicator, in EasyLanguage, it's just MACD(...), and in VB, you will need another library to do that... I guess you get the picture... PS: (Showing my ignorance, sorry) Is VB the language within cells in Excel that uses IF(,,) AND() etc etc?
VB is many things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_basic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VB_Script http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic_for_Applications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic_.NET
So what would be the best language to learn. Assume 'some' VB6 and VBA experience... Planning to create some automation for my idea's (And no, I cannot use any of the available platforms) Would it make sense to pick up VB6 again? (I will need some time to get back into it) Would you forget about VB6 and go for VB.Net because it is the future and has similar language to VB6? Would you go for a complete new language that seems to be growing in popularity so can be used long term?(I'm leaning towards c# here)
I think that you need to decide what your primary objective is. If you only want to backtest a system with a view to eventually trading it, then you need to choose a language or backtesting method that you find the easiest. in other words, take the shortest route that you can. I say this because I believe most people underestimate the work involved in becoming proficient in a programming language. Programming is a skill, and all skills have a long and sharp learning curve. There is no point in putting yourself through it if all you want to do is prove a trading system. I have seen a bit of Easy Language and I am sure that to a non-programmer, it would be as baffling as any other language. This is because you need to understand the principles of program development before you can apply the syntax. So what am I saying? I am saying that I think (a) be certain that you understand what you are setting out to achieve. If you are only planning to test one system, why spend 6 months learning how to do it? But if you are going to test many systems, maybe the learning effort is worth it. And (b) please do not underestimate the work involved in becoming proficient at a programming language.