# Thinking ahead to Windows development (blech)



## Iritscen (Dec 5, 2007)

I'm writing a program that I may want to port to Windows at some point, only so I can get all those Windows geeks to see what I've done.  I don't want to limit it to 5% of the market, yada yada.

So, right now I'm writing in Obj-C in Xcode.  I am using as much custom code as possible, mostly just because I like to, but also because I should need to learn less about Windows to make my code work when I (possibly) port it.  So, for instance, the GUI will probably be custom code, no Apple APIs, when I get around to making it; and I've written my own functions for reading/converting strings that are working nicely so I am not hamstrung by these blasted NSStrings.

Is there anything else I should be thinking about?  Is there a better language than Obj-C for apps that will be getting ported?  Should I be using something like Java/python/ruby?  The little technical crap in Obj-C is really ticking me off and hampering development.  I should be spending most of my time working on things like path-finding and predictive AI, and instead I'm stuck nursing finicky NSObjects.


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## Mikuro (Dec 10, 2007)

You'd probably be better off writing the meat of your program in C++, and using Objective-C/Cocoa only for tying together the interface.

I'm no expert on cross-platform development. This is something I'm still wrestling with myself. I'm looking into Qt, but unfortunately that limits you to writing GPL'd software (or paying a huge fee). REALbasic is great, but...well, it's not as powerful as C, naturally.


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## Viro (Dec 12, 2007)

You will be better off in C++ than Objective-C if you want portability. The only reason I would code in Objective-C is to make use of all the Frameworks that are provided by Apple, as these seem to integrate best with Objective-C. Since you aren't intending to use those, you're better off with C++.


Have a look at Qt or wxWidgets. Qt is free for writing open source applications, but if you are a small time developer I have heard that you can negotiate the license price with Trolltech. wxWidgets is free for anything, but the documentation and tools are inferior to Qt, and the library itself is stuck in the mid-90s with those horrible message map macros.


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