jrp, You are right, and I apologize to the OP for my bias example. My intent was not to discourage anyone from their task but to make sure to have ideas along with the path of learning programming and stay committed. My friend is doing well, but he did tell me he took 3 months away from trading and programming. And forgot some stuff. You right, it's not easy, but the journey must be fun to help overcome the headache days. Thanks
You are very welcome. I understand that your ultimate goal is to leave IB. However, it would probably be easiest if you first get to a level where you can successfully "translate" your current spreadsheet trading system into a C# based system and have it run without problems on IB. This would be a good confirmation for yourself and would provide you with a backup solution if programming your system at another broker would somehow fail.
I don't know the NT Api but saying i will learn C# and start using the API its a rather bold statement...First you must finish the essential code examples...write some programs that serve a purpose and then you could start thinking about programming in any field.... Sorry but this is the bitter truth.... And don't forget kids/wife this something to considering when the program just won't run ...for some strange bizzare reason.... Personally i would dive deeper into Excel Programming and trying to get the "fruits" of what it can provide and then consider changing Platform.... Finally it's not the language/IDE/Framework that makes the difference but the human...programmer....
Have you ever programmed VB in Excel? If not and you've only worked with macros in Excel, then you need to start at the very beginning to learn about structured programming concepts like how a computer program is constructed and how it runs, its structures like variables and its types, loops, logical statements and etc. because macros in Excel is NOT programming that you would need to learn for C# in Ninja Trader. I would recommend you to start learning about programming with Turing. http://compsci.ca/holtsoft/ This is where you can download the Turing compiler and programming guide. The easiest way to learn about programming is to just DO it, write your own programs. After a few programs you have written and ran, you will get the hang of programming. DON'T spend money to buy books and tutorial; you will be wasting your money! You can read ten thousand books on programming but if you don't code, it's equal to NOTHING. And then once you are familiar with programming in general then you can start to learn C# and Object-Oriented programming (a totally inefficient and useless way to program if you ask me). HOWEVER, the C# flavour in Ninja Trader is VERY high-level; it's not really the real C#, so you should have no problem learning it. I would suggest you to first read through the sample codes of one of their built-in indicators, start with an easy one with the calculation formula that you are familiar with like Simple Moving Average to see and understand the structure of the program, what goes where, what kind of variables get declared and what's used to get the calculation coded. And at the same time, you should also read their reference guide to get familiar with the key words and variables and variable types, functions that are particular to Ninja Trader. After that, just code, code and code!! First start with some very simple indicators even copy some of the sample codes, and get it RUNNING!! That's the most important. And then move on to code a little bit more complicated ones and get it running and so on. The more you code, the more you will get familiar with the program. DON'T bother spending money on those programming courses; you just need to get hands on and code and enjoy creating things that work and that's it! You will be doing EXACTLY the same thing in those programming courses, just coding. You don't need a teacher to tell you if you are doing it wrong or right. If the indicator that you wrote is plotted correctly on the chart, then you've done it right, otherwise you did something wrong. WHY pay to do the same thing when you can do them just by yourself? Good luck!! You can do it!!
If you want to get some background knowledge about Objected-Oriented programming (totally stupid and useless programming concept) geared towards C#, you can start with https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/do...ng-guide/concepts/object-oriented-programming. For C# specifically, you can read: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/tour-of-csharp/ I find them to be very useful. But like I said, the C# programming that you will be doing in Ninja Trader is LOT simpler and very high-level so you don't really need to learn those guides. Once you are familiar with programming in general, just go through the reference material and sample codes provided by Ninja Trader and it would be enough.
Another option that you can pursue is go with Sierra Charts. They offer Excel-based trading system designing and they work with other brokers other than IB. You can also try TD Ameritrade where you can use ThinkorSwim to code your trading system; it's A LOT easier to learn than C# in Ninja Trader. You can also go with TradeStation which uses EasyLanguage that is also TEN times easier than C#.