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Ask HN: Desktop Programming Language

14 pointsmywacaday10 comments

I have workflow that I want to use for task management out of email. It's very specific to the way I work and I want to implement a desktop app in Win 10 to work the way I want to. I have a degree in CS from 20 years ago but haven't programmed except for some light scripting since then. What would be the easiest language or framework the would allow for a native desktop GUI with SQL DB and allow for services to parse emails and files.

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C# - good quality debugger, GUI interface. I like windows forms, easy to do simple GUI, which is all the GUI I do. IF you want fancy stuff you probably need to use the WPF.

In C# I use Entity Framework to interact with the DB.

If you are doing this, just for yourself, I found SQLIte DB to be wonderfully easy to use. The DB is a library, not a separate application opening up ports for the world to abuse, and the DB is stored in a simple file.

I recommend Sciter.JS as a lightweight alternative to Electron. It's less than 10mb.

If you visit the repo here: https://github.com/c-smile/sciter-js-sdk

There's a database demo in samples/sqlite.

This is a very interesting question! Aside from somewhat difficult (C/C++), non-native (Electron) and perhaps too platform-specific (.NET stuff) the alternatives for easy desktop GUI development are rather limited: - Python apps with a GUI library (e.g. Qt) are nice to develop difficult to package and distribute - Go with a GUI library (e.g. GTK) resolve the packaging and distribution problems but might be a bit more difficult to learn than Python - Lazarus gets recommended a lot. You have to be comfortable writing Pascal however

If you're into Lisps the Racket GUI library is really nice and actually looks like the easiest option for developing native GUI applications with capability to build for different platforms.

If the you're targeting Windows only then .NET + C# is probably the best alternative. Not the easiest platform to learn but you'd be learning skills that have more demand on the market.

Something like Electron which allows you to create cross platform software using JS. I know, I know, JS to create a win 10 app? Yup, it's probably the easiest way right now. There are many email related apps that use Electron, maybe they can help you decide if the framework is right for you: https://www.electronjs.org/apps?q=email

As for which editor/IDE to use, Visual Studio Code is a decent and free text editor with tons of plugins. Then there's always a proper IDE like Webstorm by JetBrains that offers much more functionality and convience out of the box.

If it doesn't have to be natively compiled then PyQT would be my first choice. If it has to be compiled to native code then C# + WPF should be good enough. My understanding is that this is just a personal tool, so PyQT should be good enough. If you don't really need a lot of GUI then Python + Tkinter is also pretty good.

Reason for Python: very easy to interact with database and emails. Can put up something useful in under 15 mins and under 15 lines of code.

Lazarus makes it almost trivial to build a Windows 10 GUI that just works. If you knew Turbo Pascal/Delphi in the past, this is the ticket for you. It includes SQL components.

I used it a year ago to build a MySQL backed database of cutting tools at work.

Homepage: https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

For your situation, I would go with C# and use windows Presentation foundation for the GUI. This will allow you to drag and drop the GUI and just worry about parsing the emails. You get access to all of this with VS Studio Community. The plus side C# is pretty quick to pick up if you have experience in either C++ or Java.

I would give flutter a shot, it is easier to get started than electron and the insanity that is js for newcomers and has all the tooling you’ll need and pretty straightforward books.

TCL?

https://www.tcl.tk/about/language.html

Easiest for Windows 10? Use C# and Windows Forms.

If you're already well versed in JavaScript, use Electron or React Native or something.

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