VB6 had several positives but i'd put the "mostly live" (e.g. modifying the code while it is running/debugged) features it had - more a dynamic scripting language and less a static compiled programming language - rather than those you mentioned since Delphi and C++ Builder did those better (i learned Delphi just by playing around with it when i was a teenager in the 90s - i barely even understood English at the time, so i'd say Delphi was also easy enough).
> just give me drag and drop, and ideally a python backend
There is Boa Constructor[0] which is a very Delphi/C++ Builder inspired IDE that uses Python and wxPython for the GUI. Sadly it seems to be abandoned with the last release being in 2005.
For a modern (or at least still under active development) approach i'd suggest Lazarus[1], which is essentially a cross platform (works on Windows, Linux, Mac and a bunch of other OSes with Win32, Gtk1/2/3, Carbon, Cocoa and even Amiga GUI backends) open source Delphi written in Free Pascal. To see it in action, here is a video i made with it 7 years ago, making a 2D tilemap editor (the IDE is mostly the same, there have been a couple of minor changes but not anything big)[2].
Thanks for sharing these links! I also learned Delphi in the late '90s as a teenager, and still find Lazarus to be very useful to rapidly develop simple applications that have a GUI!
> just give me drag and drop, and ideally a python backend
There is Boa Constructor[0] which is a very Delphi/C++ Builder inspired IDE that uses Python and wxPython for the GUI. Sadly it seems to be abandoned with the last release being in 2005.
For a modern (or at least still under active development) approach i'd suggest Lazarus[1], which is essentially a cross platform (works on Windows, Linux, Mac and a bunch of other OSes with Win32, Gtk1/2/3, Carbon, Cocoa and even Amiga GUI backends) open source Delphi written in Free Pascal. To see it in action, here is a video i made with it 7 years ago, making a 2D tilemap editor (the IDE is mostly the same, there have been a couple of minor changes but not anything big)[2].
[0] http://boa-constructor.sourceforge.net/Screenshots/
[1] https://www.lazarus-ide.org/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3JgeIUo1X0