Hmm, strange, I didn't get an email that you replied, I came back to edit my last post and here you are
. I apologize if my post seems a bit rushed, but to be honest it was
Anyway, now that I have some time I'll try to give you a better explanation.
Perl and
Python are both very popular scripting languages. Each will run on just about any flavour of OS. Now being your stock standard scripting languages, neither has support for GUI applications (you can't create windows/buttons and such with them), so in comes
wxWidgets (having done some research myself since I made that post, I am no longer recommending PyQT, PyGTK, or GTK2-Perl). wxWidgets is a cross-platform GUI framework that can be accessed by Perl and Python via addons called
wxPython (for Python) and
wxPerl (for Perl). The way this would work is you would download and install your choice of Python or Perl (I use both), then get a copy of wxPython or wxPerl with respect to which language you've chosen. With the combination of scripting language and wxWidgets, you can create cross platform applications with a GUI and simplified networking capabilities. Unfortunately, you'll probably be missing a bit of the skinning business with this solution, but so you know what you're getting into,
here are some screenshots of wxPython on windows.
I've also done some further research on
XUL, so I can give you a quick rundown. If you've used Firefox, then you're familiar with the way firefox addons work. Firefox addons are written in XUL (XML User Interface Language, which if you've ever done web development, is a lot like HTML) and javascript. The user interface is provided by XUL, and the functionality is provided by javascript. Mozilla (the organisation that maintains XUL and Firefox) maintain an application called
XULRunner, which is a platform providing XUL and javascript functionality across Windows, Linux and MacOS, independent of Firefox and/or other Mozilla applications. You can find a tutorial on writing an XULRunner application
here. The unfortunate side with XulRunner is that the documentation *sucks* and examples are near impossible to find, in sharp contrast to Python and Perl. This will severely inhibit your ability to quickly pick up the language as you won't have the benefit of others' work to help you along. Firefox addons are similar, so that may be your savior, however I haven't delved into that department much yet so I can't say either way.
Finally, my suggestion to you is to simply download what you're interested in and have a play. It is very important that you *like* the language you choose, otherwise writing in it will be a b*tch.
Hope this helped, Ehtyar.
P.S. The links in this post are used under the assumption you'll be using Windows to start development. Since I have little experience with Linux, I'm afraid I won't be much help unless that is the case.
P.P.S. I've found a package of
Chatzilla for XULRunner. This is a very impressive example of a network centric application running in XULRunner. It also appears that it is only slightly modified from the Firefox addon version, which would seem to indicate that you can learn how to code for XULRunner from the abundant Firefox extensions available (which is also far better documented, has an excellent user support base, and tons of example code).
