Sorry to have rained on your parade ... but making mistakes is one of the best ways to learn. I know it can be exciting when one knows the answer instead of always being the one asking the question ... I keep learning new things myself so periodically I find myself in new territory in much the same position even though I have been programming for many, many ... well, let's just say a lot of years.
One of the things that you would find interesting and exciting about learning about modern ABL is that you would find that it was a lot harder for those friends to scoff. Oh, they might still try since 3GL programmers tend to have an attitude about 4GL or anything about which they are ignorant themselves. Funny how they will get all jazzed about some funny language that only has a tiny cadre of people working in it, but one that is visible to the press, but then scoff at a language with 25 years history of building enterprise class applications that really work and which are used by 5 million people world wide.
And who else has a language where one can create UI screens using all .NET components, but not write a single line of C# or VB, but keep everything in the high level business language? And one of the implications being that during design in OE Architect, one is simultaneously using the JVM, CLR, and the Progress AVM ... three different virtual machines working together! Stuff that up their upturned noses!
And all the OO stuff and Sonic integration and ProDataSets which make .NET DataSets look like toys, etc., etc. There's 20 years of language evolution beyond editing clauses. There is lots to be proud of.