does anyone know a site or document that show the difference for making a program using windows and *nix.
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does anyone know a site or document that show the difference for making a program using windows and *nix.
they both use totally different API sets. Windows uses the Win32 API which you can read all about at msdn.microsoft.com and linux uses mostly standard calls unless you're programming for X in which case there are toolkits galore with all of their own functions. On the graphical end of things, there is nothing to compare. they're totally different.
so to learn how to program on *nix would be like learning a new language?
well no. You can get by on unix with just standard library stuff for the most part if you want. It's the graphical environment stuff (XLib stuff) that you'll have to learn. Toolkits out there include:
GTK
Motif
QT
X Intrinsics (On which other toolkits are based)
etc....
Pick one, but yes it is sorta like learning another language. If you learned Win32 then you have an bit of an understanding of the kind of thing you would need to learn.
i dont see how it would be like a different language. it's not like pointer's are handled differently or it takes ten lines to declare an integer.
making a program is the same. write the source code, compile, link, and run. it's the function calls and libraries that are different.
basic UNIX libraries are used for most things. these are pretty standardised so you shouldn't have trouble with them
different X toolkits exist. i dont do gfx/gui's of any kind so i cant really help here.
and of course: if you go with linux or free/dragonfly/open/net BSD you'll have a lot more freedom and a lot more good open source code to work with and the tools are free as well. (free meaning open source)
have fun.
although you can use OpenGL on both Windows and Linux, its the only cross-platform library I know of.
Well, you could use cross platform wrappers like wxWindows, I heard.
As far as I understand it, wxWindows wraps the API (win32, X, ...) so you can access them all with the same functions/objects (don't even know if it's C or C++).
SDL is cross platform as well, not as good as coding ogl but its alot easier
GTK has a cross platform version for the Gimp it is supposed to be getting more popular for the windows platform soon. I don't know though
allegro and sdl could be good cross-platform libraries.