LEARNING XPL

[STEVE WILDSTROM]

Back at the beginning of this thread, someone asked if XPL was a good language
to learn programming on. My answert is an unequivocal NO. Wonderful as XPL is
for all the things it can make XyWrite do, it manages to incorporate the worst
features of all the languages I've ever worked in--the clear syntax and code
readability of C, the structure of BASIC, the conciseness of COBOL.
 For my money, the best language around for a beginning programmer today is
Borland's Turbo Pascal. Good integrated programming/development environment,
nifty built-in debugger, good context-sensitive on-line help, decent error
messages, and a compile process that's almost as interactive as an interpreter.
Turbo C or C++ is a virtually identical environment, but I fear that C may
prove frustrasting to a neophyte.