[Tutor] what tools will i need to start my project ?

[John]

i'm new to programming and decided to go with python as my first language.  
my goal is to create an excel macros that will grab information from an  
html file and import it into my worksheet. I figure i should first start  
apart from excel then work on making it work with it (if it is even  
possible). is excel macros exclusively vb or is it possible to get excel  
to work with other languages... or maybe openoffice spreadsheet? either  
one, doesn't matter to me. the result will be a listing of all my movies  
complete with information from imdb.com. i already have something that  
does this in vb but i didn't write it and i'd like to create my own.

i read about find() and how it returns the index of the 1st character of  
what you searched for. from what i can read from the vb code i have, what  
i have to do is search for a start and end string and grab the string in  
between. This works because there is certain formatting/code that stays  
constant in the html files. so for example, if the title of a movie lies  
somewhere between <strong class= and <small> every time, i would need to  
grab the text between those start and finish points. Am i making any  
sense? So basically, i am asking what, in addtion to find(), do i need to  
read up about. I think the vb equiv is InStr() and something else..

i posted this on the python-forum and recieved only 1 response. I learned  
how to read from an html using file(). I'm also looking for a searchable  
directory of python tool usage. for example if i type file() it will give  
me an explanation of what it does and how to use it.

thanks