Client GUI programming language/tools recommendations wanted

Question

Hi, I'm an old programmer who learned C, GW Basic, and Assembly on my own as a hobby decades ago, and now a lot of Access custom db programming in VBA. I'm running pure Windows for an institution. Since decades ago I touched on some minor edits in C++, C#, and Javascript - even took a college course on it (one semester). Now I am trying to develop a new SQL Server (Express) for my work. I am now trying to determine my programming language to make the GUI. I'm not particularly fond of VBA, I get the impression that there are quicker/easier languages that doesn't require so much 'overhead' syntax, declarations, preparation for dealing with recordsets, and issues with handling variables of type 'string' or 'variant.' What would you recommend?

I know it is a very personal subjective opinion, but I am going to commit to one and I:

1. Don't want to learn a language that might become obsolete in 10 years, so I want one that is not waning in usage.
2. Want one that is quick to learn and easy to use, given my programming familiarity, but also gives me lots of options such as popup windows for data entry using lookup tables and data entry validation using subtables.
3. The resulting GUI must be easy to use by minimally-educated data entry laymen.
4. I must be able to create data statistics reports with a few complex algorithms.
5. Must be free, my superiors are willing to throw my hours into it, but no other budget $.

I would also appreciate your recommendations on the tools for such work, i.e. Nodejs, typescript, json, sublime, Visual Studio (is it buggy?), NPM, yeoman, react, etc.

Thank you in advance for any responses.

Answer 1

If you already know C#,
You can use C# with VS Community which is free
and Winforms : Create a Windows Forms app in Visual Studio with C#
or WPF : Tutorial: Create a simple application with C#

I mainly use C++/Win32, but it needs a lot more code : Walkthrough: Create a traditional Windows Desktop application (C++)

Answer 2

I'm running pure Windows for an institution.

Must be free, my superiors are willing to throw my hours into it, but no other budget $.

I suggest you review the EULA for VS Community 2019 at Microsoft License Terms.