Question

I am currently working in a .Net project but from university I have also a good background in Java. Recently I am asking myself, if multi plattform languages (like Java, or VM based like Scala) aren’t on the rise?

Lets have a look at Suns WORA write once, run anywhere principle, which had been rephrased to write once, TEST everywhere because in the past especially desktop applications were/are still a Windows domain. But the last years there were quite some changes like

• Linux has improved hugely in driver support and usabilty
• Mac OS is getting even more popular
• native look & feel thanks to SWT/JFace for Java
• Rich Client Frameworks (RCP and Netbeans) that save a lot of time and provide rich experience

So, creating applications targeted on multi plattforms should be a reasonable way to go. For example, why should a small/mid-sized company pay a lot of money for windows/mac when it can use Linux (honestly, when you are not a gamer you dont need windows 😉 ). And of couse then those companies would prefer software that runs on their machines (maybe the CEO a has MAC because he can afford it but needs the same apps.) Eclipse RCP can provide for example and then it really is WORA.

I like working on C# right now, but in 1-2 years when I want to have my own little company I will use Linux and the development will probably focus on what I’ve just written. I just wanted to know what others are thinking (maybe I change my mind).

Please don’t start a war on Linux vs. Windows vs Mac (I use the first two). Its only about if multi-plattform is a good way for the future, or if you gain more by the advantages of a single platform (special features).

Answer 1

I work for a Qt consultancy company that’s been writing multiplatform applications for a few years and I work on KDE’s port to OSX and previously at a company providing a client for Windows/Linux/Mac.

The obvious benefits you get from supporting multiple platforms are:

• Goodwill from niche communities (including blogging, word of mouth support)
• Your developers can work on whatever platform they like so you can recruit them more easily
• Your application will probably be slightly less buggy as you’ll be testing on multiple platforms

The downsides:

• Packaging/distribution/support becomes a big of a pain
• Some platforms can get easily neglected
• You don’t tend to hook into the backend features of the OS as well
• If writing a GUI application then you tend to end up with something that doesn’t really meet the HIG of any platform unless you have quite a lot of platform-specific tweaking or have a toolkit that helps with this (e.g. Qt)

I still think it’s worthwhile and agree with you that it’s the future of applications. Really, there is enough good, high-level technologies that there’s no need to limit your market to a single platform’s users and Linux is a huge in emerging markets so being able to run your application there will be more and more important as time goes on.

Cross-platform solutions I’ve seen used to good effect:

• Adobe Air
• C# (with .NET or Mono)
• Qt
• Java
• Web applications (obviously)