Good language & framework for cross platform (windows & mac) desktop application.

Question

The last cross platform desktop development I did was Java/Swing. What about flex?

Answer 1

I've used RealBasic from RealSoftware for a few things just to play with it. It can get expensive if you need the pro version. It will allow you to build a stand alone binary for Linux, MacOS X, or Windows. I'm more of a server side guy but it was pretty straight forward to create the few tools I wanted to try making with it.

Answer 2

C# with Framework .Net can be good not only for Windows but for Linux with Mono.

Microsoft have a CLI that work on MAC OSX10.2.

Answer 3

Flex/AIR is a platform with a lot of potential. It's also a lot prettier than anything Java or .NET.

Answer 4

I'm a big fan of wxWidgets. My only experience with it is with C++.

Answer 5

I personally use Tcl/Tk because it is remarkably powerful and because deployment is a non-issue (with starkits and starpacks you can wrap all program resources -- images, sounds, dll/.so files, etc -- into a single executable file).

Tcl's not for everyone though -- some people find its simplicity a little hard to grok.

Answer 6

A combination of Python, wxPython, py2exe and py2app is what I typically fall back on. I've recently had a run with AIR, and it isn't that bad.. so Flex might work for you.

Answer 7

Ignore Flex it's not programming IMO. If you can code Java I'm pretty certain that FLex will be a disappointment. Flex has a place, I don't really consider it a proper programming environment.

If you've mastered Java/Swing why not use it again? I would.

.NET can be portable - but IME it's not quite as easy to move stuff about as it is with Java (although it is better than it used to be).

Also, does it have to be desktop - I would seriously consider (a properly architected) rowser based desktop application.

Answer 8

Don't do it. If you need to go cross-platform, write the main guts of your application in a business logic layer that doesn't depend on any GUI framework and then use the native platform API to finish each app.

Your users will thank you.

Answer 9

Eclipse RCP works. The result is decent on Windows and acceptable on Mac. It tends to be sluggish on Mac because of the high memory requirements though.

Answer 10

Qt

Answer 11

I'd choose an open alternative and I'd try to avoid vendor lock-in. As Richard said, "if you've mastered Java/Swing why not use it again?"