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Is there someone that can suggest me a programming language that allows you to write quickly GUI programs (on windows platform)?
P.S. I am interested on only languages that do not rely on virtual machines and then have a compiler that produces executable code directly on the machine
I would go with AutoIT, it's a very easy to learn windows scripting language with tons of functionalities: http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.shtml
I'm using it to automate some tasks, but it can do way more than that.
EDIT
Just to make things a little bit clearer for everybody:
You can create new applications using AutoIT and the Aut2Exe compiler provided. The .exe files created are stand-alone, thus require no other files but the files that you might need in your app. Everything is free and the AutoIT scripting language has a BASIC-like syntax.
The GUI that you'll use are standard Windows controls. Among the functionalities you have the possibility to automate keystrokes/mouse movements, call the Windows API and external .dlls, manipulate windows and processes and through user created libraries (called UDFs) you can even acces local databases, manage networking tasks, encryption, archiving and many more.
All I can say is that it's worth take a look and the first app I built with AutoIT was done in roughly 8 hours since I started learning. It took a folder as the source and copied everything in a chosen directory, copying files in folders named as the date when the files were created. So the destination directory would have a series of subfolders like:
11.11.2010
whatever.txt
whatever.png
12.11.2010
archive.zip
and so on. Just 8 hours and got me rid of a lot of effort ordering the files myself.
Any .NET will probably be what you're after.
Start with VB.NET which is now called Visual Basic CCYY eg (Visual Basic 2005, Visual Basic 2008, Visual Basic 2010).
If you want something not using .NET framework, you might as well go back to older version of VB and if you want something compilable that'd be like C++ with their MFC (Microsoft Foundation Class).
You need to give more info on the type of gui and what you're using it for. This could be accomplished with Microsoft Access forms and VBA, or you could make an HTML Application (.hta).
I'll put in a vote for Delphi. You can easily write applications by dragging and dropping components on to a form and doing minimal coding in Pascal, which isn't hard to learn. Later, if you decide to go deeper, you can do pretty much whatever you want. And it compiles to native executable code.
Is an executable bundler, that combines the script with the framework/interpreter, good enough?
If so, you might look at Tcl/Tk or Lua.
http://www.powerbasic.com/
http://www.powerbasic.com/aboutpb.asp
Seems like it has a RAD GUI and of course it's BASIC, plus it compiles down to .exe (as I understand it.) Might be worth checking out.
A 'quick and simple' language will only allow you to do 'quick and simple' things - and for those, having a VM or not wont make much of a difference to you.
For quick and simple & native code, about all I can think of is RealBasic. Its cross platform Windows/Mac/Linux. I find their IDE to be difficult to work with due to its inflexibility and the help system last I looked wasnt that great, but the underlying language isnt bad and does compile to native code. So it might do the trick for you.
Which programming language and tools can i use, to develope a complete stand-alone gui-application? This application will be burned on a cd and should run on every windows-pc without any installations.
Questions like what your application and what your capabilities are need to be considered.
There are many solutions to your problem. From 'Visual Studio Ultimate' to a HTML file which contains javascript.
Win32 API.. a similar question was asked today...
Use Visual Studio (you can use express edition) and build whatever you like.
This is the most powerful language, yet development time is very very slow, but the results are:
a. independent.
b. if you a good programmer - small and fast.
one thing - you got to know what you're doing when programming win32...
one Petzold book will get you where you want to go.
similar question
Well, if you really have the time and don't need to deploy on 16-bit Windows, you could always write in Win32 assembly -see MASM32 and Iczelion's Win32 tutorials. There's even a IDE for Win32 ASM -WinAsm Studio :)
The only dependencies you'll need are the Windows system DLLs which are already there on every Win32 system.
However, if you need to build something quick, something like Visual Basic 6 will do nicely - it only needs the VB6 runtime by default (1 ~ 2 MB) and that definitely fits into a CD together with your VB6 EXE.
I'd go for C++ with MFC. Reasonable development times and with static linking it could all be one standalone exe file.
If you are just looking to make one of those interactive splash screens, might want to look into Demoshield. I know its old and not supported any longer, but can be of real use for something great looking.
http://www.componentsource.com/products/509937/12838/index.html
You can find copies of it free by google-ing it. Don't think the company is around any longer so not sure if this is legit or not.
But not the right choice if you need to do some serious programming stuff.
Delphi also may be a good choice.
I need to develop a simple Windows application with 6 or 7 forms. Its main purpose is to manage files and launch a external program.
These are my wishes, in descending importance order
Free
Be Visual, I mean, the possibility to paint forms and object in the screen.
Possibility to carry it in a USB pen-drive.
I need a light/small size language, not a very complex one. My program is going to have very few forms and its functionality is simple.
Is there any language that meet this wishes? If not, is there any commercial one?
I would use Visual C# Express if I were you.
As others have suggested, C# isn't a bad choice.
Personally I'd use wxPython. If you want a GUI to help you lay out the forms, wxDesigner is very good.
Take a look at Visual Basic Express. IMNTBHO, the learning curve for VB.Net is shallower than the C# equivalent.
Failing that (as much as it pains me to say this) take a look at MS-Access (and a runtime install for carrying it around with you). It's not free, but it's also not terribly expensive. The learning curve is even shallower than VB.Net.
You mentioned wanting your program to be portable on a USB drive, so the previous answers suggesting C# and VB.Net are good as long as all of the machines you'll be using your program on have the .Net framework installed.
If you need to run your program on systems without .Net, you'll need to look at programming environments that can either make a native .exe or can wrap scripts in an executable. Which of those is right depends on your needs and programming experience, but I'd take a look at Lazarus/Free Pascal, C++, or Python (with py2exe).
Visual Studio Express editions seems good for your requirement.
Check: http://www.microsoft.com/Express/
Another vote for Lazarus/Free Pascal. It works from stick, and generates (on Windows 32/64/CE) standalone binaries, and you have full access to the windows api and other windwos specific gadgets (COM)
I'd recommend Turbo Explorer. It's a free RAD IDE that'll generate native win32 apps in C++ or Delphi without the need for a managed framework like .NET.
It couldn't be simpler to use. Just drag and drop your components on your form, compile, and run.
I'd ordinarily push for C# or something on the .NET framework but the stipulation of running on a flash disk means you need something that compiles natively. In addition to Lazarus/FreePascal mentioned above you might also want to investigate CodeGear Delphi
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Some of the most efficient engineers, developers and IT professionals I know usually carry around a common "toolkit" of useful programs, add-ins or utilities which help them for day-to-day debugging, developing or designing.
The question is:
What is in your utility toolkit.. What tools couldn't you live without?
Unix Utilities for Windows
Ack
Its like grep, but better, faster, and does more what you want to generally do with large source collections. Written in Perl, and does complete PCRE because of this. Recursive traversal is default, and it intelligently skips files that are unlikely to match using file-type identification to short cut.
( This means it automatically avoids traversing .svn/.hg/.git directories and thus gives massive speedups )
ack "function\s+foo\s*\(" --php
# find the definition of "foo" in all php files
# decendant of the current directory
Total Commander (GREP, FTP, ZIP, it's all here...I'm not even starting on this one)
Notepad++
WinMerge
Python. Seriously. I use it for a lot of small stuff. I also like to use the command line module for creating easy little project specific "shells" that I drop in frequently used queries etc. (show all tables in the projects db, search for stored procedures etc. - yeah, doing a lot of t-sql lately...)
I tend to accompany big c#/t-sql projects with a little python script that extends the cmd.Cmd class to give me a small collection of helpful queries etc. that I can use to poke around in the database.
Also, I often use python to modify input data (often csv files, but any junk will do) into insert statements etc. Or do plausibility tests on that data.
Currently on my thumbdrive (not ALL software):
Notepad++
.NET Reflector
develop (incase I need a quick IDE setup on a different computer)
C# Default Keybindings pdf
Math tables pdf
Boo Primer pdf
MSDN C# & VB Example projects
My Utility toolkit would have:
1.) Hex Editor - XVI32, or any other
2.) Beyond Compare - Comparison of files
3.) Cygwin shell installable complete with perl, gcc,gprof,gcov,gdb and related tools,bash,vim, development/debugging tools
4.) A model makefile for *nix platform
5.) Winzip utility
6.) Source insight or any other good code browsing tool
7.) Ghostscript and GSView
8.) PDF reader
9.) Good quick antivirus tool/exe
-AD
Currently in Thumbdrive\Tools.
"Edit Plus 3" - lightweight editor that I've been using for ages.
"F# - 1.9.6.2" - great for when I need to throw something togheter since it's usable without an IDE, also a great language for many tasks.
"ildasm"
"Sysinternal Procmon" - great for debugging and getting a feel for what the machine is really doing.
I have the following tools on my USB thumd drive:
SysInternals Suite All their great troubleshooting tools in one download, in case I might need a tool that I didn't download before
WireShark setup
VNC binaries (so I can run the viewer directly from USB) and setup
A couple of Portable Apps:
Notepad++ Portable
Putty Portable
FileZilla Portable
7-zip Portable
Sumatra PDF Portable
WinMerge Portable
I use/carry with me:
.Net Reflector
The SysInternals
Suite (particularly Process Explorer, Debug View etc)
Exescope
Orca (Windows Installer)
Depends
Spy++ OleView
Resourcer
Ethereal
IE Dev toolbar
Depends .Net
DocView
LDP (For LDAP)
Just to name a few
I do a full install of cygwin. It gives me 95% of the stuff I need and hard drive space is cheep. It's a lot easier to install everything then get emacs, gcc, gdb, perl, utilitys such as grep and awk, not to mention the servers it comes with like Apache and MySQL if you want to try something out quick.
grep gives you the biggest bang for the buck. You can use it to search on any type code and many forms of data. It is fast, and very powerful. In code it can locate what you're looking for in variables and function names, but also in comments. You can also pipe results into it, and can thus enhance the utility of many tools available on site.
With some clever hints you can easily make grep search for a specific type of an identifier. For instance, "^function_name" will often find in C code a function's definition, because these start with the name of the function at the beginning of the line. If a search pattern gives you too many false matches, you can filter those out, by piping the result through grep -v.
Many years ago I was stranded debugging COBOL programs on a 1970s-era Perkin Elmer machine running OS/32. The machine lacked programming tools, but had an ancient C compiler (so old, it would accept =+ as the original form of the += operator). I ended up writing a rudimentary grep program, which immensely improved my productivity.
Notepad ++
FF + Firebug
Jquery + bunch of plugins
DBManager
Cygwin for error tracking
Google for help
Docs in CHM & Cheatsheets
I always seem to have a bootable Linux Distro on me in SOME form or other. Whether it be the bootable Pen Drive I keep attached to my Keys, or the multitude of LiveCDs I have for various "diagnostics" - I find that if I am in a situation, generally, where I'd need some sort of tools... a reboot into a Live environment provides me with near enough everything I need, and more
PE Explorer
FAR Manager (great file manager especially when working with lots of ftp sites)
FlexHex
Ida
OllyDbg
Emacs. It's my "does list of things" tool, helpful with quick calculations, with mangling configuration files (I work as a network engineer, there is an awful lot of configuration to be done, lots of it bordering on trivial to generate with either small snippets of code or careful use of keyboard macros).
Here's the tools I use to make Sharepoint solutions:
Visual Studio Team Suite 2008
VSTS Database Edition GDR
Sandcastle
DocProject for Sandcastle
.net Reflector
GhostDoc
CSS Vista
Sharepoint Inspector
Sharepoint Explorer
EditPadPro
CodeSmith 2.6 Freeware (with my own .net 3.5 SP1 gui)
Indigo Rose MSI Factory
Wix
Nmap
Wireshark
Fiddler
Adobe Photoshop CS3
Expresso (Regex tool)
VMRCPlus
Powershell 2 CTP
Quest PowerGui for Powershell
IIS Resource Kit
HyperV
Tools I use because you do not have to install, just drop on system and use:
Agent Ransack
7-zip
PSPad
Robocopy : Need to extract from Windows 2003 resource kit (just grab the .exe)
Fast image viewer that has been around for a long time and proven to work.
IrfanView
ide: visual studio / netbeans (zip file!, almost portable)
editor: notepad++ (portable) with monaco font
file comparison: winmerge (portable)
source control: subversion, tortoise
ticket control: redmine
file manager: free commander (portable)
explorer: IE, FF (portable), chrome (portable), iron (chrom without google crap, also portable), qtweb, arora,
FF plugins: firebug, web developer, xmarks
imclient: pidgin
mail client: gmail
download manager: free download manager (portable)
sites: STACKOVERFLOW!!!, gotapi... and google, all the time...
miscelaneous: launchy (can't live without it!)
virtualization: virtual box (I have a machine image for every environment)
office: openoffice (portable)
lamp stack: xammp (portable!)
disk usage: windirstat (portable), scanner (portable)
pdf viewer: foxit (portable), sumatrapdf (portable)
uncompressor: 7-zip portable
M$ sql comparison tool: sql delta
M$ sql management: visual studio sql manager
mysql
mysql management: phpmyadmin, manager provided with mysql
uninstaller utility: revo unistaller (portable)
registry cleaner: ccleaner (portable)
ftp: filezilla (portable)
as you may have noticed, I have a special predilection for portable applications...
gVim
VS2010 Express
Firefox + Firebug
System Rescue CD
A collection of very useful utilities on a Live CD
There are two tools I simply can't work without
PowerShell
GVim (or really any vim style program)
These tools are so heavily ingrained into my daily routine and greatly increase my productivity.
Since I'm often working on different workstations, I've got into the habit of tagging the stuff that I install on delicious:
http://delicious.com/DavidSchmitt/stdsw
wc.exe (from http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/) so handy.
WinRAR and puTTY. That is all I need (i'm assuming internet doesn't count).
.Net Reflector
Powershell
Stackoverflow.Com
I like to program in Python so I have created a portable Python programming environment on a thumbdrive.
Portable Python 1.0
SPE Python editor
wxPython in Action ebook
Python How to Program ebook
Several Python ebooks from O'Reilly
Various tutorials for Python tools I don't use often
Development Tools
Subversion
Tortoise SVN
Useful tools/utils
Virtual Cd Control Tool
Linq Pad
Reflector
Subversion Commit Monitor
BGInfo
SourceGear Diff Merge
Unlocker
MWSnap
Paint.NET
WinRar
FireFox Add Ons
Firebug
ColorZilla
Visual Studio Add Ins
GhostDoc
The utility toolkit or the Tools List that every developer should have described in the following link from Scott Hanselman:
Scott Hanselman's Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows
I use Espresso (I got it with the MacHeist bundle!), and Firebug for coding. I use Photoshop if I need any images.
I manage my projects with The Hit List.
I'm teaching (or trying to teach) computer programming to a grad-student. Her previous experience amounts to little more than writing spreadsheet formulae. Which IDE or text editor should I recommend?
Please bear in mind that:
I only meet my student about once a week.
She uses Windows and I use Linux.
She doesn't have a community of users on hand.
She doesn't have much money to spend.
Edit: The languages she's learning at the moment are Perl and R. (Sorry ... for forgetting to mention them earlier.)
Edit: Thanks for all your answers!
The most highly recommended editors are jEdit and Notepad++.
If I can find a way to give my student adequate support for Notepad++ (e.g. by running it under Wine) or if I think that she can manage without support from me, then I'll recommend that. If not, I'll go for jEdit.
Apologies, once again, to those who saw the question before I got around to listing the languages that I'm teaching.
The Visual Studio Express products are all free. Unless the fact that you're using Linux changes things :)
Start off simple. Do not not scare her with an IDE! They are overwhelming at first and are not core to developing software. I learnt rudimentary Java with Crimson Editor.
If I started again I'd probably go for Notepad++.
Eclipse might be a good option (if a little overwhelming at first).
You obviously need to look at a cross-platform IDE. Eclipse is one of the best in this regard, as well as having support for many languages. It also comes with a good set of tutorials.
Since you didn't mention what programming language (guess it doesn't matter) you were teaching, I'll stick to something that supports multiple programming languages and multiple platforms. Given your situation, I would use jEdit (http://www.jedit.org).
jEdit is a programmer's text editor with hundreds of plugins, auto indent, and syntax highlighting for more than 130 languages and since it's written in Java, it runs beautifully on Linux, Windows or MAC. Hope this helps.
The best, most documented, IDE that is free in my opinion is Visual Studio Express. There are tons of blogs, howtos, videos, training, etc. You can find more information about them here:
http://www.microsoft.com/Express/
Also, if you are a student, Microsoft provides an entire stack of software free to students just for this purpose. This is through a program called DreamSpark. Included is an operating system, the professional version of the IDE, SQL Server, XNA Game studio and Expression. Any student can get this. More information is here:
https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/
Hope that helps.
I have used Notepad++]1 a lot for various editing tasks, and I find it quite useful and competent.
Depends on the programming language. FoR C/C++ and anything .net Visual Studio is the way to go. The Express edition is free.
Eclipse or Jedit, if Eclipse is too complicated. jEdit is cross platform, free and supports a number of different languages.
Crimson Editor is also very nice; it's similar to Edit Plus. Syntax highlighting, tabs, etc.
Notepad++ for editing is awesome to me: it's Windows only, but maybe you can use it with Wine under Linux. But if you want someting more like an IDE, then Eclipse, or NetBean (both use java) can be very useful, although they are very resource expensive on old PC.
My suggestion is Textpad. You can teach her javascript, all the basic, and some advanced concepts are there. It's fun for the student see the output in a browser, and you can even teach a little HTML if the mood strikes.
Komodo Edit from active vision is free, open source, and available for Windows and Linux. Very nice features.
Otherwise, Emacs as it is available on both platforms and can be configured for CUA controls.
The Cream version of VIM is also a good option.
It really depends on the language you are teaching her.
EditPlus is a good simple editor. Free trial version and pretty cheap license.
Dev-C++ as a non-MS alternative.
Quote: "Bloodshed Dev-C++ is a full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the C/C++ programming language. It uses Mingw port of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) as it's compiler. Dev-C++ can also be used in combination with Cygwin or any other GCC based compiler."
Code::Blocks is also another good one, free and cross platform. Unless you need something for using VB / C# or other .NET languages as it is mostly C/C++. For the .NET languages on linux I would recommed MonoDevelop
Aptana is very handy for web-oriented programming.
http://www.aptana.com
That depends at least in part on the programming language you intend to teach her. That said, you might want to take a look at Eclipse. Though it started primarily as a Java IDE, it's been extended via plugins to support many others (including C/C++, Flex, Haskell, and ColdFusion, to name a few), and can fairly easily be adapted to a new language if support isn't already out there.
Add to that the fact that the IDE is cross-platform so you can both use the same tool on your platforms of choice, and it looks like this might be a good fit.
I'd recommend SciTE, as it's both available for *nix and Windows and free (as in beer). It supports pretty much anything you'd expect from a decent editor and, if she goes on to use it, quite customizable. It also isn't too complex, so it should be easy for her to get going with it.
+1 to the Notepad++ suggestion - Anything I do that's not .Net-related I do in that.
For Java, BlueJ is an excellent teaching IDE. It doesn't confuse the new student with a lot of advanced functionality (stuff they won't use for years to come). Eclipse is a great IDE, but there is a LOT of stuff there they could drown in. The same is true for Visual Studio, but I don't know of a simpler IDE for .NET languages.
You may also consider Ruby with Scite as a teaching option. The IDE isn't that fancy, but along with the ease-of-startup of learning Ruby this could work very well. Ruby certainly has some advantages over Java/C#/C++ for the beginning student (mostly in that you don't have to create a full class with a main method just to get a program running).
For the easy to teach Component Pascal language (a successor to Niklaus Wirth's Pascal and Oberon) try the free, open source BlackBox IDE and the book Computing Fundamentals by Stan Warford.
Regards,
tamberg
If you are writing software targeted at a Windows platform then Visual Studio is more or less the standard IDE. Since you are teaching a graduate student I would recommend getting the academic license for the professional edition if they are going to be writing a lot of software, otherwise the express editions should be enough for leaning purposes.
In terms of text editors, the one that I currently use the most is Notepad++ which is free, open source, and support a wide variety of features that are useful to software development. There are also also a number of useful plug-ins available for it as well.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned vi. I'll argue that the less your tool does for you in the beginning the better coder you'll be in the end. For a newbie, give them syntax highlighting and some helpers for dealing with blocks and lines. Something like vi is great, emacs is also fine, or if you absolutely must be on Windows, something like notepad++ or jedit will be decent. The main point is to learn to program before you learn to let your IDE insert code that you don't understand for you.
MultiEdit
Extremely powerfull (and extensible on emacs level) text editor with many IDE features (integration with compilers/debuggers etc). Beats all other suggested editors on every aspect.
Much easier to learn and use than editors with UNIX/terminal roots like vi or Emacs.
Not free (not too expensive though), and requires some learning to use effectively.
Another full blown IDE is SharpDevelop. It's OpenSource.
http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/
Zeus - http://www.zeusedit.com
I have to mention PSPad.
It is very good, feature rich free editor. I have used UtraEdit and finally found free alternative in PSPad