And feeling over my head, these are the requirements

Multiple Regression animation: specifications

I would like to be able to:

1. input a number of triples of numbers (X, Y, Z) representing points in 3-D space, and for the points to appear as dots in a display on the screen.

2. input a triple of numbers representing intercept, slope on the X-Z plane, and slope on the X-Y plane, and for the corresponding plane to appear in the display, as visible but transparent (so you can see the points through it). The two slopes should appear as lines on the display, where the plane cuts the X-Z, Y-Z planes.

3. alter the parameters of the plane (intercept, etc) by simple operations: perhaps mouse click and move on sliders on the screen.

4. rotate the whole display in 3-D.

5. display the sum of squares of the vertical distances of the points from the plane, in order to show that a unique position of the plane gives a minimal value for this (the regression plane of best fit).

6. display the residuals, ie lines joining the points to the nearest point (vertically) on the plane.

Now by following tutorials on mathematica I feel as though the functions exist and I can give up trying to understand the formulas and constentrate on the GUI the lecturer asks for but I cant seem to find functions to the lectureers specifications, is mathematica capable of input boxes and the like?

I also been looking at multiple linear regression on rosetta code, what actual program language would you recomend to do this task with a gui etc instead if you know of any? I actually came from a programing background thinking I could help.