Advice developing offline apps (GTK)

Augmented · 19 Jan 2007 at 12:40

I'm looking to develop an application for GTK, and what I'm after is some advice on which language to choose.

The application I'm intending to develop will primarily be interfacing with webservices, so needs to have good support for manipulating XML and making typical web-api calls e.g. SOAP as well as simply scraping data over HTTP. Also need good support for rdbms - SQLite and MySQL will do fine for now.

Right now, I'm thinking of Python. I have little experience with it, but it seems to fit my requirements (PyGTK seems mature, and there's a fair amount of good Python-based GTK apps about). Any thoughts on that? I like the look of the language as it seems less involved in the low-level stuff compared to the C* languages, for example. And that will benefit my feeble web-developing mind

. Anyone with Python experience care to give me a few thoughts about it?

Bear in mind I come from a primarily PHP (OOP) background, and Java in times gone by. I'm doing this just for fun - the challenge and experience - so not really looking to learn something as a career asset.

Ideally, I'd like to develop an application I could port cross-platform - what are the prospects/difficulties of this? I'm very wet behind the ears when it comes to offline apps, so apologies for the multitude of questions

.

kiwi · 19 Jan 2007 at 13:17

i'm not the most experienced developer but pygtk would be an excellent choice for what you're doing. from your previous posts, i can tell you're a fairly good programmer so you could also look into some qt stuff, it's C++ but the APIs are pretty extensive and wouldn't be a million miles away from java.

edit: from a really far-out guess, (the AS in your sig) would it be last.fm related? just as a reference, the official client uses qt and i'm pretty sure the last-exit gnome version uses pygtk of the top of my head.

Augmented · 19 Jan 2007 at 14:00

Thanks. Just been looking at Qt and PyQt, and it looks promising. I was aware of Qt, but it hadn't clicked that it was usable in that respect. Will have to do some research on the differences between Qt vs GTK.

And, yes, your intuition serves you well

. It's going to be music/media related; while it's not directly related to audioscrobbler, I would like to make use of the AS data - or I may go directly to the Musicbrainz database. Not sure of the finer details yet, as I've got to learn the basics of the language first before I can start with any actual implementation

.

I've been inspired by programs like the last.fm client, Exaile and Listen. An underlying reason behind this is that I would like to be in the position to contribute to such projects.

kiwi · 19 Jan 2007 at 14:55

sounds very interesting, are you allowed to say more?

Augmented · 19 Jan 2007 at 15:31

kiwi said:
sounds very interesting, are you allowed to say more?

I'd like to, but I'm literally working on an idea of several different things I'd like to try and do and not sure how it's all going to come together (or if it can). I don't want to end up with egg on my face if I fail spectacularly

. My main focus right now is the process of developing an application, rather than the purpose it serves.

I'm certainly not looking to make another [linux] media player, there are too many of those about that don't get developed enough (they should all band together and make one awesome, unified, player), and besides I think it would be rather bold of me to attempt. But I am going to try and pinch ideas from several media players that use the web in one way or another.