C program to convert skp to dae

[gedw99]

hey all

i have reached the end of what i can do in ruby, and need to code in c.

i am new to c

The thing i need is basically to convert skp to dae. I am sick of having to export manually from inside sketchup, since i do allot of work with webgl and collada.

so any tips on starting to write using the sketchup c sdk?
ide to use ? Prefer none. No heavy visual studio.
will the c exe be able to run without sketchup open?

There is a skp2dae.dll in the normal program files installation of sketchup. I assume i cant use that because it needs sketchup loaded, i assume ?