I don't think you can get past that the 6502 was meant to be programmed in assembly. Some of the tricks needed to optimally use memory just don't lend themselv

I don't think you can get past that the 6502 was meant to be programmed in assembly. Some of the tricks needed to optimally use memory just don't lend themselves to higher level languages. I started with a lot of basic and then moved to assembler because it was the easiest path.