would it be better to use vagrant instead of xamp for the wordpress development track

That's really a matter of preference, they are somewhat different beasts. XAMPP will install right on top of whatever OS you are running (Windows, OS X, or Linux) and allow you to run right from there, access simply via localhost, etc. The disadvantage is that it potentially clutters up your base environment (with Apache and MySQL generally running) which some people would like to avoid.

With Vagrant you are setting up a virtual machine, generally built from an existing Vagrant "box". For Vagrant you must have a VM system (such as VirtualBox or VMWare) running before using Vagrant. Once you install a box you then need to setup networking in such a way to allow http access to the new virtual machine, make sure the /var/www directory is referencing a shared directory (if you want to edit files from your local machine) and remember that if you want to edit anything in the file structure apart from the shared directories that you'll need to ssh into the Vagrant box. Also, if you aren't familiar with Linux then Vagrant will be a very steep learning curve. The advantage is that if something goes wrong with your environment you can just blow it away and start over and if you match it to a deployment host you can know that your deployment will go smoothly, Vagrant is also great if you are working with multiple developers and want to ensure a consistent development environment.

If you are just getting started looking at Wordpress for the first time and do not have experience with VM's, Linux, and networking then I'd recommend starting off with XAMPP (or similar). Concentrate on learning Wordpress development first, then if you decide you want to learn about Vagrant later go for it, all that you learn from using XAMPP will apply within a Vagrant box as well.

That's my $0.02, hope it helps!