cross-platform application

[campagnolo_1]

Greetings,

new to the forum and to programming on Mac. I'm trying to figure out what language I should use to create a small application (a sizing calculator for garments) that will work in Windows and OsX. I'm pretty decent with Java and use a program called Autohotkey a lot for PC. Unfortunately Autohotkey doesn't work with Mac.
Does anybody have any suggestions on what language would be favorable to use so I would only have to write the script once?

Thanks for the advice,

Chris

 

[vansmith]

You have quite a few options. You can use one of the "big" scripting languages (Ruby, Perl, Python) and one of the various toolkits if you need cross platform support. You can also use .NET - there is the official runtime for Windows and Mono for the Mac. And, of course, there's Java.

If it's just a calculator, you could also make a webpage and use JS to do the calculations.

Is this going to be a UI or is this command line based? Do you plan to distribute it to others?

 

[campagnolo_1]

vansmith,

thank you for your reply!
The program is going to be a GUI where people can choose from different measurements and then the script will calculate their appropriate clothing size (Small, Medium....). I'm planning on distributing it and also make a version available on our website.
I thought about using Java since I have the most experience with it, but don't know if it will work on both OSs, meaning whether I need to be looking out for certain things to make it work.
If it would be of any help I can post some of the autohotkey code.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[vansmith]

Java will wrk fine across both platforms - it is fully supported by Windows and OS X (not to mention Linux as well). If you're familiar with it, stick with it since it can be easily packaged into a jar file for distribution.

 

[Mark FX]

Another option to consider would be Real Basic, it is a cross platform language as is fairly easy to learn, although it is different to java.

Real Software: Programming language, Web Development, Software Development Tool

Like vansmith said, if you no Java you might as well stick with it.

Regards Mark