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I am a Computer Engineering student and am working on a team with other students.
I was wondering what anyone of you more experienced programmers would do when working on a project that needs to be built cross platform. The application needs to run on Windows XP, OS X 10.4, and Linux.
Currently we have a developer release / proof of concept built in Visual Basic but our new lead developer is not used to doing Windows projects so he suggested using GTK.
If you need more information please ask.
you can also use QT http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt
If you want to port the app to the different platforms, then the genral approach is to isolate platform specific code into separate modeles, then just write the module for each platform and select the correct one at compile time.
If you want one code base that runs on all platforms you can either use a platform independant language like Java, or find a platform independant C/C++ library like qt or wxWidgets.
In the real world, this is much more difficult than you might think. If you go to the computer store, you don't find many programs sold for both Windows and Mac (probably none for all three platforms). When you do find them, you'll often find different versions. i.e. Version 7 for Windows, and version 6 for Mac, because they haven't got it ported yet!
If this is a requirement you've established for yourself, I'm a little concerned that you will spend more time on the cross-platform issues than on the "real program". If it's an assigned requirement, OK, It's expected that you will spent lots of time on it.
There other things besides graphics & GUI that could trip you up. Anythingthat's not ANSI/ISO C++ could be a source of trouble. In any case, you might have to assign one team-member for testing & debugging on each platform.
and the fact that the windows sells more and is better..ugh macsQuote:
When you do find them, you'll often find different versions. i.e. Version 7 for Windows, and version 6 for Mac, because they haven't got it ported yet!
Windows sells more, because Windows is almost always standard on pc's. That's not fair.