But compiling to ".net code" has nothing to do anything.

a beginner should start off easy and then move on to harder languages.

On learning, it depends on how someone learns languages. Some people like a top-down approach, which involves learning high-level languages first, then they move lower. For myself (and quite a few others), they prefer learning low-level languages first, then they learn higher-level languages.

I think you would find learning BASIC to be very beneficial instead of trying to understand Java straight away.

And yes, GLBasic would be as good as any other place to start. The feature set isn't "limited" as some wag said.

It is easy to learn, fast to compile and programs run just fine on different platforms if you so wish.

If you feel the need to use a different BASIC, there is also PureBasic, Blitz Basic of various sorts and of course DarkBasic of various types - so there is a lot of choice.

Don't listen to neighseyers who still think BASIC is still stuck in the 1980's - it 'ain't - BASIC is just as capable as C/C++ or even Java. And yes, there are BASIC's for web server programming.