Mathematica. Get the Home Edition. Why push into more of the same OOP when you can stretch out to the other corner. We know that functional programming isn't going away, and getting good at it within only the lightning-flash implementations in OOP languages is like learning Hebrew from a dreidel. And Mathematica opens up the engineering side of things, which I suppose Haskell might, but Mathematica has way cooler graphics!

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"

What? OK, it is an OLDER platform. But apart from not having parameterized constructors (which it inherits from COM, of no fault of its own) I don't get the complaint. VBA is great, like all things, for the initiated. (Try writing a significant system in the WordPerfect 5.1 macro language!) To make it more robust, I built an error control system in VBA itself that allows discriminated error logging, all integrates into the language, and handles even recursive functions. Keeps the call stack, etc., and has purred away along with the main programming it supports in an Excel-based end-of-day system at several retail locations for years now. I show up once a year, look at the log, and generally just delete it. VBA is martial arts. I built a little column picker that lets the user create several different views of a spreadsheet and pick the desired view, or use it as a basis for a custom view on the spot. All just one form that plugs right in to any spreadsheet or XLAM. And a little programming will let you lock down spreadsheets, remove gridlines, etc., so they look like big windows forms, all automatically. Where else do you get juicy windows forms that have the ability to do math like that! Wrote a serialized inventory spreadsheet that took direct input from inventory guns, for cellular phones. Get a call they needed it for cellular identification modules...had it out that afternoon, all in a turn-key system. It just takes having a handful of tools that you put together into your XLAM. The only things I'm hateful about are messing with charting from 2003 to 2007, before which I had interactive zoomable mathematical charts, etc., all in VBA itself, and after which it crawled to a stop, and the Ribbon UI, which is painful and silly in its implementation, even if the end result is pretty nice (and when your clients see their special little tab just for them, they think you must really be a wizard). If you want any tools, visit Chip Pearson's website. Want the error system (which implements as a singleton offering several additions to your XLAM) or column picker, just let me know. I've got a sad github page up, but haven't really done it justice yet.

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"

I did an intro for high school students where we made a dessert. It was some sort of an easy made-from-Oreos thing, but they had to split into teams, and then half the team had to give instructions to the other half for making the dessert...and the "computers" had to follow the instructions exactly. So, if they said "empty the sugar" before the cup was over the bowl, well, it landed on the floor. It was messy, but in the end some projects were edible, and I think it said a lot about the precision of thinking as well as about instruction ordering.

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"

I'd say that symbol vs meaning is philosophically always going to make that perfect symbol an impossibility. Code should be self-documenting, but any project should also document beyond the code! My rule of thumb is to use Hu for distinguishing type details (zero-termed, length-specified, pointer or value, etc.) especially in COM, say; and for module-level designation. For me, I think it's fair to make a person look into what a variable is/means, but its symbol should let them know where to look. What bugs me are magic symbols that just appear in a tight context, like a function.

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"

I appreciate the optimism! I am starting to look through existing code that does some similar UI-based things. I'll say that CP has great resources, and I may be able to get there myself. If it seems like time and experience just won't allow, I'll try some of the posting suggestion. Thanks.

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"

I'm not really thinking of a 'new UI', just modifications to improve what's there already, especially along the lines of helping reduce stress-related problems for 'heavy users' and to improve the experience for those with disabilities.

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"

And why <> rather than !=? VB6 is, well, BASIC, maybe the last real BASIC to ever have major importance. VB.NET is CLR and, well, .NET. BASIC does it that way, since BASIC for the Apple II at least, so far as I recall--but then again, my memory isn't so good. What do you think of the := for named parameters?

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"

I have a couple pretty good ideas about UI that I've honed in theory for some time now, that might help people out, but are beyond my coding skills. Is there any place at CP for saying, "Hey, here's an idea if anyone wants to code it for the good of humankind?"

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"

Model something, as someone mentioned, something you are interested in. I'd love to model something like mechanical computing devices so I could do core/bot wars between digital devices and digitally modeled mechanical devices.

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"

Maybe its not the killer app, but killer accessibility that would end up as required by the government. If W7 was the only avenue to some super-accessible UI that the government required it would be enough to tip the scales, don't you think?

JonShops -- Fun really begins with the words, "So what in the World do I do now?"