On Jul 9, 2009, at 7:38 AM, Douglas Stemen wrote:

> Does anyone have suggestions on a language that would be easiest for  
> me to learn (I am more comfortable with procedural programming  
> versus OOPS & have programmed in machine language, Fortran, Cobal &  
> Basic) to make the transition of existing logic to a Windows  
> equivalent

I would look hard at PowerBASIC. There are two versions: a console  
compiler and a true Windows compiler. I have had great luck with both.  
The underlying BASIC is close to GW-BASIC / QuickBASIC, though you do  
have to learn a bit about the Windows API calls for any GUI work. It's  
easy enough to copy the basics from example code and build from there.

PB is fantastic, and very fast. The online forums are also very active  
and supportive.

I would recommend Delphi to anyone, and the new owners (Embarcadero)  
have re-established a newsgroup server that's hyperactive. The pricing  
is still higher than I would like, but they run specials often. The  
downside is that Embarcadero is all about databases so everything else  
is considered an extra. (http://www.codegear.com/en/products/delphi)

I like the approach of FutureBASIC, so PowerBASIC is a nice equivalent  
that includes SQL support on Windows.

- C. S. Wyatt