That early experience gradually got me motivated enough to learn more powerful tools. These days, Common Lisp (https://github.com/codr4life/cl4l) is my preferred tool for most problems; but I'm gradually learning to like Forth as an embedded DSL (https://github.com/codr4life/lifoo) and might be convinced to write C (https://github.com/codr4life/libc4life) under the right circumstances. I swore early on to never, ever settle for crumbles from the design table again. Then I kept on learning the same lesson over and over again through most languages in common use, until I finally accepted that nothing but simple, powerful, general purpose and free was going to work for me. Mysterious ways, indeed :)