Try using hisoft basic. It came out on a coverdisk at one point (i think i have a copy of it if you need, email me) but the coverdisk is crippled, i think it will only compile a certain number of lines (thousands???) but is still way cool for starting out and you can create some pretty sweet mini apps with it.
The code is (i think) 100% compatible with amigabasic, however the biggest advantage is that instead of runing the programs interpreted, it will compile them to binaries, so it runs heaps faster and you can make standalone executables with it. Muchos good.
However it is BASIC in the end, and you should not concetrate too hard on it, If you want an easy programming language to move to, try java. Its a very well formed and wisely constructed language, and a good stepping stone to c++ etc.
Personally i would LOVE to see a new language, with the syntax of java but compiles to binaries like c++ and no, a jit compiler for java it not what im talking about. Perhaps some precompiler that converts the java source to c++ files??? it so crazy, it just might work!
