I recently began work on my first "hard core" module for a client. It will be used to display a table of foreign exchange currencies and their values. One of the biggest challenges was finding a source for the information. This is a prime example of the importance of learning about the business I'm consulting for.

Initially i thought i'd be able to pull data from Yahoo finance and call it a day. The client (being a forex broker) need a lot more accuracy than that. They needed up to the minute values of both the exchange value but also the bid and ask price. After a solid 2 hours of researching providers I found a most excellent service: XIGNITE.COM. They make their business out of providing an XML API for financial data.

I just started diving into it and it is really cool stuff. I'll continue to post progress of the module.