Wow, such a windows question, and written to a linux group! Dare I bring up Qt and KDE ? I realize neither is a language, but with the future of Qt and KDE looking to scale to mobile devices, it only makes sense to plan future applications to be written with C++ using the incredibly impressive Qt and KDE frameworks. Both or individually. They rock. Extremely powerful, and scale very well. Nathan On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 10:15 PM, Joseph Sinclair wrote: > Lots here, Hopefully this will help. > > 1) Windows is a terrible bet. It's already having trouble in the market on > multiple fronts; it doesn't scale up to servers (well), it doesn't scale > down to mobile devices, and it won't likely work well with the transition to > ARM architectures and a more diverse hardware ecosystem. > 2) Apple will never dominate anything (in computing devices) for long. > They're too tied to the closed-control-everything walled-garden approach, > and most people don't really want a device that's completely closed (witness > the surprising popularity of jailbreaking iPhones) outside of simple > single-purpose consumer-electronics devices (like an MP3 player, and even > there Apple is less dominant than they'd like you to believe). > 3) Don't choose a single language and expect to use that for 10 years; it's > extremely unlikely any given language or platform will hold sway that long. > 4) Apple IOS *is* OSX on phones. It's the only "version" of OSX that will > ever run on a phone. > > That said: > Java is a great platform to learn, particularly for mobile; consider > building an Android app to learn with (Android apps are Java with some > slight modifications and extra API's). The Android SDK runs in Linux and > provides an actual system emulator so if your app runs in emulation it will > almost certainly run on real devices (unless you do something really weird). > If you also want to try some web development look at building a straight-up > servlet app with Tomcat6 (avoid Spring and J2EE; the first has jumped the > shark and the second is very complex). Servlet programming is relatively > easy to learn, and it's immensely powerful. Almost all examples of JSP > programming follow the broken ASP model, which is almost the worst possible > way to architect a web application. You might also look at the Google Web > Toolkit, which allows you to use Java to develop the AJAX frontend as well. > > C and C++ are strong languages, but not terribly well suited to mobile apps > unless you have a lot of experience and need the absolute maximum > performance on a phone. If you are interested in those languages learn the > QT toolkit as well, as that will help you create C++ applications that are > cross-platform without a lot of *very* difficult work. Understand that it's > generally expected that everything you write for the first 5-10 years using > C++ will be horrible, just because C++ is more complex and powerful than > generally recognized. > > It might be useful to look into Python, Scala, and Javascript as additional > options for a, currently in-demand, strong niche language that will buy time > to build a broader skillset. > > If you really want to develop for iPhone, then buy a Mac desktop or laptop > and develop using Objective-C, since that's more-or-less required to develop > a native iPhone app. > > For most cases, the best place to develop a new desktop application is > Linux; develop using Java, C++ with QT, or Python with wxWidgets and you'll > be able to run it on Windows and Mac as well, but developing on Linux will > encourage cleaner code and provide a smoother software development process. > > Good luck, > Joseph Sinclair > > On 03/22/2011 09:36 PM, keith smith wrote: > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > > > I would like to build a desktop > > application to run in Windows. And I am looking to the future... 10 > > years, if that is possible. > > > > > > > > With mobile computing (smart phones) > > starting to emerge, and a possible future dominance by Apple devices, > > I would like to try to prep for that too. > > > > > > > > 25 years ago I learned dBaseII and > > liked it. For that time is was very feature rich and very powerful. > > Then I followed with dBase+, III+, FoxBase+, FoxPro DOS and Windows, > > and finally Visual Foxpro. Really enjoyed that 13 year run. M$ > > bought VFP and now it is almost dead. > > > > > > > > I moved to Perl for a short time, ASP > > for a short time, and then PHP, where I am now. > > > > > > > > Looking back I can say I learned one > > major lesson - be careful what sills you build and maintain. > > > > > > > > So I am needing to learn a new skill to > > create this simple Windows Application. I was thinking of C++ > > because no matter where the market goes C will more than likely be > > useful on Windows, MAC, and Linux. > > > > > > > > > > Then there is Java. The write once run > > everywhere language. Nice thing about Java is I can build web apps > > with it as well. As phones become smarter, I suspect there will be > > some real need there also. Then I also hear the rumor of OSX running > > on phones. Nice! > > > > > > > > So when the day is done and gone I do > > not want to spend a bunch of time learning a new language and the > > development tools that go along with it and find I wasted my time. > > > > > > > > Any Suggestions? > > > > > > > > Thanks in advance! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------ > > > > Keith Smith > > > > > > > > 2 Chronicles 7:14 (New International) : if my people, who are called by > my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from > their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their > sin and will heal their land. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nathan England I believe in the Constitution and the 4th Amendment. I am innocent and have nothing to hide, but NO agent of the state crosses my threshhold without a valid warrant signed by a judge and properly submitted. If we fail to exercise our rights, we lose them.