OnlineBiddingFrenzy.com

If you were going to write an auction sniping program, which programming language would be best to use?

(An auction sniping program will do automatic real time bids on Ebay and other auctions, greatly increasing your chance of winning an auction.)

Public Comments

1. That depends on if its a EXE or an online thing. If its an EXE I would use visual basic because the auction will need many databases and database editors and that is what Visual Basic is made for. If you want this online like ebay you would need to know PHP and MYSQL. The MYSQL for the databases and storage and the PHP to act as the server to show all the stuff.
2. Probably a Firefox browser plugin (javascript/XUL etc), as all the web browsing fuctionality is already provided, you just basically have to interface with it, and tell the browser what to do, eg, refresh the page, read values from the page, click links/buttons etc. Would probably be easier than trying to interact with Ebay databases (besides, these will probably not be directly accessable, otherwise they could potentially be hack-able).
3. It looks like PHP and C# are the two options that you have. I would go with C# just because Microsoft has a good IDE for it (Visual Web Developer Express Ed.) http://developer.ebay.com/support/docs/tutorials/
4. use Java
5. i wouldn't reccomend do something like this unless you use something that does not show up and suspiscion on the ebay servers i used snipers trying em out for a warez site. one in PHP the other in C#. i got ip banned with the C# one and got fined for hacking with the PHP. i wouldnt reccomend unless you know what your doing and know how to avoid capture.
6. I'd recommend perl, as I do for all online things. Perl is fast, can be online or a standard program, and has great compatibility with the internet.