"a more advanced version of the WWWBoard program"

Why reinvent the wheel? I would be more inclined to simply install an already existing package that does the job. A lot less work. There's a few I have dabbled with that give MANY if not all the features that have been discussed in the past - image uploads, file uploads, multiple forums, private chat, email notification of new messages, etc....

The reason I have not done so is that no one has expressed approval of such a change when it's been mentioned in the past.

"I don’t know why we did not take a closer look at XBasic when we were looking around at other languages. I seem to remember that we considered it."

I recall suggesting XB many many years ago.

"Perl... requires virtually no array declarations etc. ... However, there is still that calculation speed problem."

Perl, like other "weakly typed" languages only offer a "one size fits all" choice for holding data. I suspect this is one source of why such languages aren't as fast as others. XB is "strongly typed" such that you are given an array of options for storing data. You pick the data size that fits the job. That way the program runs more efficiently and quickly. In XB arrays are dynamic as well, yet are still strongly typed.

There is a spectrum of languages available. On one end there are the simple easy to use/learn languages (high level), and on the other the "esoteric/abstract/difficult/confusing/complex" but powerful languages (low level). The ultimate in low level is machine code/assembly. But it takes a lot of work to do the simplest of tasks. There are amazingly high level languages that take little to do something, but it comes at a price. When you make something easy to use, you make it less powerful. XB is towards the more powerful side, but it does take some getting used to.

"It also lets you jump out of loops etc. by using very crude GO TO statements."

That is very poor programming technique. GOTO does exist in XB but using it to arbitrarily jump out of a loop can cause problems. There are proper commands and programming styles to do so correctly.

I stopped using GOTO's when I no longer had line numbers. It's antithetical to the concept of structured programming. XB is a structured language.

Julia, "apparently comparable with C for calculation speed"

I'll take a look. XB has also been compared to C in speed.

"Proposed Project"

From the description you've given, the general concept is doable. The devil is in the details.

Brian