Trading

I'm on a quest to learn how to trade financial instruments.  It's something I've been interested in for a long time, but as with most things my interest has waxed and waned.  I'm making another attempt.  At some point in the process, I would like to mix trading with my software development experience.  This mixture is generally considered automated trading, algorithmic trading, quantitative trading, etc.  But first, my goal is just to learn how to trade.  As I am learning, I would also like to doing some coding that is in step with my learning.  I would like to code up a trading platform that could eventually be used for back testing and trade execution.

Currently I'm having a hard time deciding even what instrument I would like to trade.  My father trades equities mostly.  I have also done some of that, but mostly based on his tips.  A post in Wall Street Oasis (WSO) recommended starting with futures, because of the inherent complexity and leverage that's built in them.  Some people at a local meetup recommend Forex, but that doesn't interest me as much.  They connected me with a gentleman that does options trading.  He pointed me to tastytrade.com.  I have looked through the site quite a bit and watched a lot of the videos.  I'm leaning that direction because they seem to be continuously posting helpful content to their site.  That's a challenge with trading... people are secretive about their knowledge in this area, and if they aren't secretive about it, what's their angle?