Simple Programming on the Mac

If the kind of programming you'd like to do is like the stuff you've already done, you should probably look at AppleScript. Many apps, both Apple apps and third-party apps, support it, and you can use it to automate all kinds of tasks on a Mac. If you're interested in learning to write full-fledged applications, you should learn Objective-C and Cocoa.

 

There's AppleScript for working with Apple's application.

If you've used VBA, you might look into one of the simple Basic interpreters for the Mac do some really basic scripting without having to learn much of any new stuff.

But Python on the Mac is likely to be both easy enough and more useful.

 

Check Apple script and automator, as suggested above.

You should take a look at Pages, but you might be in for a disappointment. MS Office seems to be more mature and powerful at this point, also because Apple's office suite is now three years without major update.

I'm using keynote, which is much better than older powerpoint versions - however PP 2011 seems to be significantly improved. I never really got into Pages, it never felt as easy to use as openoffice or the old word versions I'm used to. With Exel vs. Numbers I don't have any experience.

 

Old school. Up to date people talk about Power Shell.

Side note, I always preferred installing ActiveState's Perl distribution, which integrated PerlScript into the WSH. Microsoft always ship only the lamoid VBScript and JScript engines. Also enabled PerlScript as a valid ASP language in IIS, which was pretty nice in and of itself.

 

So do I, but I was forced once to write an ASP application (what a pain. Session this, Application that).

 

I would also advise you learn some Applescript as well, get to grips with it in
Applescript Editor.
When you've learned Vanilla Applescript, you could then think of moving
on to ApplescriptObjC which can also be written in the Lion version of
Applescript Editor, or Xcode, ApplescriptObjC is an extension to the Applescript
language that enables you to build full UI applications, and and uses the same
Cocoa Frameworks as the ObjectiveC programmers use, but is much easier
to learn, but you have to learn the basic Applescript language first.

Regards Mark