I just finished getting the IB API to feed data into Excel and didn't even really need to learn VBA. I have two realtime charts in Excel now. Not only do I have an awesome system that charts spreads, functions of spreads, volatility adjusted functions of spreads, and can chart/analyse/process and transform data, it's really cheap. Very simple and a great compliment to my other analytics that I made using (free!) brokerage software [Thinkscript]. Thinkscript is awesome, but I hate VBA (not interested in it). Programming skills are pretty much essential. I have forced myself to learn the basics through hacking and hobby projects. It seems like basic skills are all I need to make great tech tools as an independent trader. Just my two cents.