G-startup development considerations
I want G-startup to work on both Windows and Linux. Although it is possible to produce cross platform application, that gave me a few choices and accompanying problems. I want the application to look native to platform it is running on, avoid numerous dependency installations and avoid lengthy downloads.
Unfortunately, this is yet impossible. None of my solutions are nice, rather I must choose the approach which sucks the least. Here are some options:
Python and GTK:
Runtime is mostly present on Linux. Only PyGTK needs to be downloaded. Unfortunately, on Windows it requires download of Python, GTK runtime and PyGTK.
.NET:
2.0 framework is installed on many Windows machines. Linux is covered through the Mono project which is a separate install.
Multiple codebase:
Python + GTK for Linux and .NET for Windows. This approach covers previous drawbacks but adds maintenance problems with having two versions of source code.
I don’t like any of this but that’s the state of the industry every developer must cope with.
For now, I picked multiple codebase approach because I know how to do it immediately. Since my source code is under 1000 lines, maintenance is not an issue yet. I repeat, YET. It will be after the first few bugfix sessions. This version is now in trunk in repository and available for downloads.
I remain curious about Mono version. I suppose I will branch the project in the near future to try Mono approach.