Hi Power Mousey, nice to see you post here. I've read just about every post in the Cobra section of the Codersworkshop and am eager to see a release. Unfortuantly though, Grahme has got to meet the expectations of a lot of people with all the hype about it. Most of this hype is just from speculation over what features will be in the language.
But DBP is the place to be right now. DBP is as stable as it has ever been, even the help files have been improved and are finally getting some attention from the developers(Alternativly, there's the dbp-help.com site that also provides documentation). Not to mention, multiple monthly tutorials in the newsletter
Dark Physics will use Aegia's physX system which will put DBP on par with the big boy engines. Don't want DBP Physics, try the already built in (and open-source) ODE or download the Newton Game Dynamics wrapper.
Dark A.I. is now availiable which takes some load off developers where enhancements may be made elsewhere. There's also many other plugins availiable for DBP such as Blue to rapidly create windows applications.
Basic to basic for you? Then try DarkSDK and get access to C++, or use the SDK as a learning tool by integrating all of the DBP commands.
Shaders are the future, and DBP has many developers who've already created a wide range of shaders. DBP is one of the few languages BASIC languages I've seen around having such an extensive list of 3rd party shaders due to its large community.
I know I've rambled a bit, but there's just so much great stuff going on. So yeah, I'll try Cobra out as well out of curiosity, but DBP is really coming along.
A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
(Formerly Yellow)