🚀 go-pugleaf

Unless you plan to merely dabble, (and I know these might be fightin'words
to some), don't get VB.  For learning, the TPW is fine, particularly if you
have little or no experience with structured programming.  For heavy-duty
programming, C or C++ in the Borland or Microsoft flavours are the way to
go (I have no preference... both have their positives and negatives).

Probably, the best thing you could do, judging by your post, would be to
drop in on your friendly neighborhood tekkie-bookshop and pick up some titles
on learning programming in general, and C in particular, if you intend to go
on to Bigger & Better Things.  "Teach Yourself C", "Teach Yourself C++" are
a couple of the better-known ones.  There are tutorial books which come with
source code on disk (I recommend that... typing in page after page is onerous)
and some which even come with stripped-down compilers (though not for Windows)

Programming Windows is a formidable subject, at best.  Learning C as a first
language is, as well (C++ is a superset of C, most usable in situations where
you are building a group of related applications:  It is definitely -NOT- a
"hacker's language".)  Don't let any of that put you off.  It's very do-able
for most anyone with an orderly mind and perseverance.

On second thought, just to get your feet wet, VB might not be such a bad
choice.  It certainly does get you right into Windows, and insulates you from
much of the nastiness of bits and bytes.  Also, VB in particular, and most
modern BASICs in general, have evolved to be nearly indistinguishable from
Pascal, anyhow, so if you can use VB and avoid GOTO and GOSUB/RETURN, hey,
why not?!  I still recommend C/C++ as the "serious" language, though.  But
whatever you choose to do,
Have fun!
Bill Whedon   whedon@netcom.com