Hi
I need to create a desktop application for a small scale firm.Its more of an inventory managemnt sort of app.
I need to keep a tab on various parameters-some arithematic,others strings. I need to input these values in and retrieve the information - at that time, or months later.
the softeare is windoes based.No mac no linux.
Please suggest what language should I use? And hoe to proceed with this ?
Thanks
The language used doesn't have much of an affect on the solution to be honest, not once OS restrictions are out of the way. You should pick a language that meets any special requirements (you don't seem to have any) and that you can code well enough in to create the solution.
As to how to proceed - how skilled are you in software development? You have only given us a very brief overview and want to know how to code the solution?
hi
well said. What do you suggest between Java,VB??
Not quite skilled.But i would love to be. All I have done is the college programming assignments.
The end result would be exactly the same with either of these languages(although I would prefer the look of win forms but that is jst personal choice). They are both more than capable of doing the job. Pick the language you want to get better at and have a go.
Hmmmmmm. I see some very good input here. You can basically use any language, like I almost always use python. If you just want to use something that can easily work on windows as in code a file that will directly run. I would say java or C#. But you should already have some programming background, so just use your best language, which looks like it might be perl. (personally you should learn another language like python for more cross-platform development, or maybe VB for windows)
Well, no Linux, no Mac? Are you sure that this will always be the case? Why not all three in basically one code base. Python works but has some irritating overhead to get the GUI classes connected. Java works and has the advantage of greasing the slides to a web-based application. VB? Well, I did a lot of development in VB and loved it but then MS decapitated it. Then they tried to re-attach the head with VB.NET. This is incidentally a problem with all proprietary solutions: You may do a lot of work only to find out some time down the road that the APPs won't work anymore because the development environment is no longer supported.
Right now my preferred environment is Qt5 - stable, open source and cross platform. On Linux it uses native linux widgets. On the Mac it uses native Mac widgets and on Windows it uses native Windows widgets, on Android... etc. I develop for both Windows and Linux and virtually the only issues in porting to a different platform is telling the Development environment where to find any needed libraries and recompiling on the target platform.
So, how to get started? 1) Read documentation. 2) Plan your GUI. 3)Design the GUI in a Forms designer.
4) Implement the methods needed to make the GUI work.
VB was really nice for item 4 and OK for Item 3. Qt5 is really very VB-like in regard to item 4 - Right click on some widget and select "go to slot". You pick a signal such as clicked or double clicked, then OK and the environment writes and inserts the boilerplate code for the method and drops you into the CPP file at the newly inserted method.
However, once you get used to the somewhat arcane "Layout" structure of Qt, it really beats everyone else hands down. Remember what a pain it was to recalculate widget positions and sizes when resizing a form in VB? Well layouts do all this for you - as long as you set them up correctly.
Not that its perfect. There really are some irritating quirks, but they are mostly a matter of getting to know the environment and actually reading the documentation. And, let's be fair: What environment comes with no issues (be honest!!). The answer is NONE.
My final advice: Get a copy (it's free). Install it and try it out on a simple trial application with a simple GUI. You can add to this application later to make up your final program. If you like it, use it. If not just uninstall it and use something else.
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