Stepping outside of Vlide use Notepad++ that is correct name, it has a lisp format built in which is very handy shows bracket matches, great for debugging as you write.
Re lisp or visualLisp for me 40 years, VL has advantage at times of using readable properties (Vla-get-layer obj v's (cdr (assoc 8 obj sometimes solutions are more directly enabled using entnext and the dxf codes.
If you thinking linking to Excel or Word or Access then VL is the way to go Autocad can talk to them. Last post else where was get range selected in excel.
The where do I get resources has been asked before many times lots of links.
Books look at Kindle, Togores, Reinaldo N. very cheap 4 books.
Afralisp has tutorials.
The Visual lisp developers bible.pdf
Others will jump in.