User Portlet

I am a Mechanical Engineer, retired and in my 72nd year. I have programmed in Fortran-4 among others Modula-2. For fun I decided to take up some programming to keep my mind sharp. I decided to invest in Mathematica. Here I am with startup problems with this language. From the comunity I hope to receive some hints how to get out of the trench where I get stuck at times.