From the sound of the description, I'd say that bwbasic would be your best start. It claims to have a large set of features, as well as the ability to make system calls to Linux command-line tools. That would probably be an excellent way for you to use the skills you already have in order to learn more about Linux :-)

You won't get the GUI stuff, but everything else should be there.

After a bit of a play with that, you might want to consider trying a more modern language. The question gets answered in about a dozen different ways each time that it's asked :-) but I suspect python might be a good one - there are books available on the subject (more so than Ruby, for example) and it has a much more reliable structure than perl. PHP can be used from the command-line, but most of the books on the subject will deal with web-based usage only, and for the older and more randomly structured PHP4 or earlier (I have it on good authority that PHP5 is "good" :-). Java I'm not too sure how to summarise, but I've never felt comfortable with it (mind you, I'm not a developer). C, C++ and C# ... I'd say that these are best avoided until you know why you have to use them :-)

There are still gazillions of other interesting languages with wonderful existences (Smalltalk, Lisp, Logo, TCL, Haskell, even Ook :-) but unless you're generally interested in computer languages because of the types of problems they can solve, I'd advise you to leave them well alone for a while :-)

-jim

On Feb 7, 2005, at 5:05 PM, Lindsay wrote:
mid-90's.   Basically (not a pun), I still use the original basic
language I learned (self-taught,) but add in the graphical features and
a bit (5% maybe) of the newer Visual Basic language.

Would the former of those below give me some 'starting point' to 'play'
with in Ubuntu with my limited expertise?

universe/bwbasic:
Description: Bywater BASIC Interpreter
The Bywater BASIC Interpreter (bwBASIC) implements a large superset of
the ANSI Standard for Minimal BASIC (X3.60-1978) and a significant
subset of the ANSI Standard for Full BASIC (X3.113-1987) in C. It also
offers shell programming facilities as an extension of BASIC. bwBASIC
seeks to be as portable as possible.



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