[Tomato]

Here's what Tomato wants to do.

He wants to develop a program that will read sbrodds. Tomato wants to set up alerts when arbitrage opportunity presents itself, alerting which book currently has the best number for the team at that second.

Where does a ripe young fruit (yes, we're fruit, not vegetables) start when trying to educate themself about Computer Programming 101? Google? The library? SBRForum?!

[MonkeyF0cker]

I would download a copy of Visual C# Express or Visual Basic Express from the Microsoft website (they're free) at http://www.microsoft.com/express Then I'd go over the lessons in the Windows Track at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner

It isn't very hard to write a scraper in either language. C# is probably better to learn as it offers more functionality in the long run.

If you struggle through those lessons or afterward you don't understand the concept of arrays or classes or some of the larger practices of programming, then I'd suggest getting a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. to help clarify it for you. Otherwise there are quite a few resources on the web that you can search for and likely find some clarity on the subject. Honestly, I wish all of these resources were available when I learned to program...