I learnt to program with GW-BASIC when I was 13 and, as you say, it had all these high level built in functions that made easy getting results.
Most of the stuff I programmed when I was 13 was crap, but it was amazingly funny!
Today I would recommend Python to start tinkering, but to be honest I think it was easier back then. My PC had 512KB of RAM (it doesn't matter, GW-BASIC allowed only 64KB for both your code and your data), CGA graphic card (4 colors), 8MHz CPU and no HDD disk; and even with all these limitations, I think it was easier than Python + PyGame.
Most of the stuff I programmed when I was 13 was crap, but it was amazingly funny!
Today I would recommend Python to start tinkering, but to be honest I think it was easier back then. My PC had 512KB of RAM (it doesn't matter, GW-BASIC allowed only 64KB for both your code and your data), CGA graphic card (4 colors), 8MHz CPU and no HDD disk; and even with all these limitations, I think it was easier than Python + PyGame.