One thing I could recommend to all BASIC programmer, is Asic. Asic is a BASIC compiler wich makes small and fast programs. The BASIC variant is not 100% compatible with QB, some porting work has to be done to make QB programs compile in Asic. If you want to try it, just search for "asic500.zip" at AltaVista or any other search engine.

The built-in library contains the most basic functions, but if you want more routines, you can write an Asic library in assembler. I have a good Asic library with many useful functions, if you want it, just tell me, and I will mail it to you.