We need to write some software that will compile and run on both an Mac OS X server and Ubuntu. We would love to use Objective-C with all of its Cocoa goodness, however the GNUstep implementations of the parts we are using are broken (in the latest Ubuntu package anyway.)
In light of this should we use C++ (I would really rather not), C or something else that we have not thought of?
It is a server/back-end process that is very resource intensive, Java and other interpreted versions of this software perform much worse than the Objective-C proof of concept we have written, hence we now wish to re-write in a “compiled[1]” language.
(NB: Some people might consider this subjective, however at the end of the day we do need to get a job done, there has to be a reasonably appropriate correct answer here).
[1] Compiled to native CPU instructions, not compiled into “byte codes” that then have to be run by an interpreter.
I would implement the core business logic in C and take the time to write GUI wrappers native To each platform’s code — Objective-C /Cocoa and GTK/gnome or whatever.