Language for professional, sellable software?

[Redhat]

Hi all,

I've realised I don't post much here, probably good for you 

Anyway, I was just looking for some thoughts on the "profitability" in certain languages.

What I mean by this is which language would you pick, if you knew them all (yes, i know, we're talking hypothetically here!) to build software for selling?

I'm talking the Win32 platform here too. Specifically 2000/XP market.

C++ is the obvious answer.. but could you sell java applications? Delphi is another obvious one too.

Just looking for thoughts...

[f0dder]

I'd stay away from JAVA except for places where it's required - performance is simply abysmal, thanks to sun's crappy JVM and silly lawsuit.

C++ is where my heart lies, but it's impractical to do GUI stuff unless you use third-party libraries.

Delphi, BCB and VB all seem like good tools if your program is mostly GUI-centered. I have a background in assembly language, though, so I'm not too pleased with their large filesizes and VB's runtime. I also dislike Delphi's code generation, it's crudd.

.NET seems like an interesting platform... it's still a huge virtual machine, but in my experience it runs better than java, is better integrated, has a lot of important attention, etc. It's not yet as portable as JAVA, but that'll probably come

[Redhat]

Nice reply! Thanks 

Let me expand...

My company are moving into software design as well as corporate identity design, and we need to know the right people to hire, and which language they should know 

We're thinking C++ too. The programs WILL have GUI's, as the first project is a Customer Relationship Management software, primarily for our own use, but we are looking to resell also.

Apart from wxWidgets, which GUI libraries would you recommend for C++? WTL?

Many thanks as always 

[f0dder]

If you hire java/.net/... programmers, you risk getting "click-and-play module monkeys" that aren't very skilled in writing "real" code. Not to disrespect those language nor all coders using those languages, it's just an unfortunate trend. After all, it *IS* goddamn easy to whip up a gui in .net, delphi, vb, ...

I haven't played much around with the various toolkits, they all seem a bit heavy for my taste. I've heard a lot of good about wxWidgets and especially QT from trolltech, though. If I needed a "heavy" framework, I'd probably go with either of those; MFC might be a bit lighter, but very windows bound. WTL is like a light version of MFC without any documentation, I guess I'd rather write my own wrappers than using WTL

If you're looking to resell the system, I think you should go with something portable. Not really to have it run on different platforms, but because windows-centric code has this habit of being pretty ugly, if the API isn't abstracted. The win32 API is powerful, yes, but pretty incoherent.

[Redhat]

Thank you, f0dder

After our chat on IRC, I have decided to go ahead with C++ and a GUI Library. Things are moving fast in the office, just setting up our blog/big marketing tool 

Coding will begin once we find someone willing to take on the project as employment Probably a temp position for now..

We will soon have a website dedicated to our software design. Stay tuned for updates 

[crono]

Hi,

have you considered to do C++ with the .net Framework (=Visual C++ 7)? Windowsforms can be very powerfull and nice to use. You also get the benefit of the "managed code" aproach. If you don't going to use .Net you should definitely give Qt (http://www.trolltech.com) a try

[mouser]

Im definitely not the best person to give financial/business advice but i think in general you would be well served by taking a balanced approach that looked something like this:

1) make sure you learn one mainstream accepted language *very well* (c++, java, etc)
2) and then make sure you have some experience with some of the scripting langauges like perl, python, php etc.
3) learn how to use the tools of the trade (debugger, ide, etc) and get some experience with some libraries like qt, boost, etc.
4) if you think you want to focus on web development, that's a slightly different path and you would focus more on the emergent web technologies like ajax, ruby on rails, etc.  these seem to change more rapidly so keeping up with current trends here is more important.

in other words, you really do need to go deep into one language and not be someone who knows a little of everything but can't build big programs.  but don't put all your eggs in one basket, and don't ignore the importance of knowing how to use other tools.

just my 2 cents.

[mouser]

another thought:
anyone who has learned a few programming languages well will probably tell you that the underlying concepts and skills are extremely similar between different languages.  a good, experienced programmer can probably pick up new languages easily (although like everything it takes lots of time to become really efficient and proficient in the idioms of the langauge).

in short, the best thing is get experience writing code, in whatever language you choose, and learn how to code well.

Recommended reading:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735619670
Code Complete, Second Edition (Paperback), by Steve McConnell



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/020161622X
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master (Paperback)
by Andrew Hunt, David Thomas

[Rover]

Code Complete should be required reading for anyone who programs for more than a hobby. 

It helps overcome a lot of the d'oh issues that can arise before they are a problem.

Definate thumbs up 

[SKA]

Checkout Clarion - RAD toolset for Windows apps (competes with Delphi,PowerBuilder,VB,etc. ,has addons to PHP, ASP & dot NET (under development).

Clarion Rapid Database Development technology for Windows & the Web. 

Clarion 6 Overview:
http://www.softvelocity.com/clarion/overview.htm

Compare Clarion 6 Pro & Enterprise: 
http://www.softvelocity.com/clarion/Features.htm

Features new to Clarion 6
http://www.softvelocity.com/clarion/c6new.htm

Clarion 6 FAQs:
http://www.softvelocity.com/clarion/c6faqs.htm 

Detailed info & technical guides:
http://www.softvelocity.com/clarion/productinfo.htm

SKA

[mouser]

we are about to run a huge contest for c++ builder, a RAD C++ tool that is used a lot in my programming.
i'm a big fan and we're going to be giving out over $15k in prizes.. might be a good time to give it a try

[Eóin]

My first post here, hopefully the first of many

Like f0dder, C++ is my main language. I I were to start writing a serious project I definitly go striaght for WTL. Codeproject has an excellent WTL section and there have been a number of attempts to extract useful information from the sources with documenting tools; codeproject, viksoe.dk, Pallium and Gnomedia Codeworks are just four such examples. Between all of these resources you will usually find any help you need.

[mouser]

codeproject.com is one of the best resources for windows development on the planet.

[f0dder]

Nice to see you aboard, Eóin! - let's see if we can rally a few more members from the winasm community?