I found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNUStep a much more helpful read, actually. So the GNU people have actually made this proprietary framework cross platform? Good, I guess. I still would prefer something like QT or one of the Python GUI kits like wxPython as a framework, but eh, each to their own.
I hope they developed it themselves and didn't just nick GNU code (last I checked only bits of Darwin were OSS). That said - eh. I'm still not that interested in it as a platform =P
Hehe... I actually started out with Pascal in Middle School then experimented a bit with MS Basic - it's very simple, too simple and once you get to the point where you want to do more powerful stuff you're kinda stuck. Later then I moved on to c++ and then c and a bit of c#. Now I'm moving towards obj-c! I would definitely start with c/c++ too as it gives you the foundation and fundamentals for your future programming skills and needs - unlike VB unless you want to do Word-Macro(virii) programming :D Indeed Obj-C is used a lot on the Mac platform, but it's extensions are rather simple, yet syntactically powerful and quick to learn once you know C/C++ Framework wise there are Cocoa and GNUStep. Can't say anything about GNUStep, but Cocoa is a really nice framework to program with. C# and the .NET framework are bigger than Obj-C and Cocoa but IMHO they are a huge mess and personally I hate dealing with them. C/C++ also give you the advantage that it is syntactically very similar to a lot of languages and you'll find it easy to learn new ones really quick. I'd say it took me about a year to initially learn C++ and understand most of it's concepts. C's pragmatics can sometimes be a bitch but once you know them... So yeah! Stick with C/C++ and forget VB