I was an avid VB6 user and got more than a little ticked off with MS over their love of .Net so I started looking around and discovered RealBasic. Talk about an easy to use language and cross-platform to boot. I ported all my VB6 stuff to RealBasic and I have never looked back. (And no, I don't work for them.)

Asking Paul Krugman what the future holds is like asking a blind person to reproduce the Mona Lisa with those big fat kindergarten crayons. That is something I would actually buy because it would help someone who needs it. On the other hand there is NOTHING about Krugman that I would buy.

I would tend to agree that this is a great way to provide immediate feedback and still give someone a basic enough knowledge of programming. Another alternative would be REALbasic (www.realbasic.com) It is about as platform independent as you can get and will also provide immediate feedback. Plus, for Linux users the standard version is FREE!