Reading thru these forums, it seems ninja trader is recommended as a tool for automated strategy design and backtesting. Therefore, I've set out to try to learn c#, but I have zero programing knowledge. I buy a book called "learning to program with c#" by Smiley, which was well reviewed on Amazon, but I'm basically 3 pages into it and already running into an error which isn't explained by the book. Can someone recommend good learning tools and methods for me to help me learn c#? Ideally something that helps specifically with strategy design for Ninjatrader? Thanks in advance
If you find something please let other newbies know of it... Programming is not all that easy. Ninja is just so well documented that it is definitely the place to start though. They have specific examples of every one of their instructions. With virtually all the other charting packages you have to play a lot of Rumpelstiltskin.... They have some instructions regarding looping and general programming ideas right in their documentation if memory serves, you might start there if you have not done so already.
You basically have two issues to address: 1) Learning C# and programming. 2) Learning to interface to the Ninja-trader library calls. For #1, there's tons of books out there. Though I hate the titles, the "xxx For Dummies" are usually a good intro to the basics. I also like the Apress series of books. You can also check two websites, codeproject.com and stackoverflow.com. The first has lots of source code, sample projects, and tends to be more tutorial oriented (for a variety of languages, but there's tons of C# stuff on there). Stackoverflow is a great place to ask problem specific questions for C# things (as well as tons of other stuff). For #2, once you feel a bit more comfortable with C#, the Ninjatrader forum on their website is a great place for specific issues. The NT help does a good job of explaining the basics (with a couple of simple example systems).