I know everyone has already responded, but if I were a complete newbie starting out, I would choose REBOL to learn.
It's just as much not 'C' or any language that you really need to learn if you want to do this for a living, but its FREE, its current, its cross platform, its done up by Amiga legend Carl Sassenrath, and finally....whew, its what you want, a well documented easy to learn language for begginners.
In my humble opinion, while I see your valid points for Amiga Basic (printed books! yes!...I agree that is good)...
in the end Rebol is better because it has an active user community now....
