I’m looking for a programming language that can help me build a desktop application for Windows, macOS, and Linux that’s not big but not small either. Additionally, I’d like to be able to build a website with the same language. I’ve been considering Ruby, Python, Golang and JavaScript. Python seems to be mainly used for scripting and ai, so I’m not sure if it’s the best fit. JavaScript has a lot of negative opinions surrounding it, while Ruby sounds interesting. Can anyone recommend a language that meets my requirements?
To be fair, all three can probably do what you’re asking for, in building a desktop application. So the real question comes as which flavor of language do you want to write. The only language of the three I can’t speak on is Ruby, as I haven’t used it.
Python is a “scripting language”, but by that token technically so is Javascript. It’s an immensely popular language due to its simple syntax, yet complex features as you get better with it. Python can build large-ish applications: web apps, desktop apps, terminal apps, and yes also of course AI, bulk data processing, etc. For GUI applications, I’ve personally used pyqt (4? 5? 6?)
Much of the same can be said for Javascript. As you said, there are “negative opinions” about JS, but everyone has their opinions (most factually-based) on the goods and bads of languages (although, yes, JS does get more negative opinions than others). Yet, Javascript is still a widely used language, and you’ll probably end up needing learning it anyway if you decide to go into web development.
What I personally suggest is this:
- See the learn x in y minutes pages for Python, Javascript, and Ruby. Make sense of the quick-tour of the languages.
- Make a simple project using each of the three languages. Something that just reads something from STDIN, does some work, prints stuff, as an example. This helps you get to know the basics of the syntax, tooling, and quirks of a language, and helps you narrow down which language you’d like to be working further with.
- Pick one of the languages you’re leaning in favor of and go build your application. If you come to a point where you feel like the language you choose is no longer suitable for what you wanted to do, you can always retry with another language, and then you will know at least a fair part of more than one language.
I think I’ll just focus on learning one thing at a time to get a better feel for the basic concepts, rather than worrying about what’s the best approach and then try out some, thanks a lot for the response! It really helped me decide to just get started instead of dwelling on the details.
Im biased here, ive been learning python for almost 16 months and only dabbled in Javascript and never did any Ruby, but for a first language, i think python is fantastic. Its “easy” enough to keep you feeling like your skill is actually improving, while still being able to do pretty much anything (where performance is not a high priority). I also just think javascript is ugly to look at.
desktop application for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Nothing does cross-platform desktop apps as well as Qt.
I’ve been considering Ruby, Python, Golang and JavaScript
Of those languages, I would choose Python with either PySide or PyQt. If my interface needs were very simple, I might also consider Qt Quick, which makes GUIs with JavaScript and a declarative language called QML.
Thanks i will look into PySide and PyQt. I also think all kde apps are build with Qt
I can vouch for PyQt, it works quite well for what it is. Be aware you might have to dig into the C++ docs if you’re trying to do something non-trivial.
If you like, you can use Qt Creator to build the GUI template, and then basically import into Python and build all the logic.
Just a bit more perspective for you:
https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#technology-most-popular-technologies
More than half of professional developers use at least some JavaScript, and almost half of us also use Python.
So both of those are likely to be worth the effort to learn.
That said, as a diehard Python programmer, if I was forced to pick a single language to focus on, it would be JavaScript. JavaScript runs almost everywhere, and it specifically is the only decent option in a few places, such as Web app browser code.
But also, while I’m fluent in a couple dozen languages, my preferred go-to language is still Python.
Definitely JS if you want to also have a website. Use electron to turn your website into an executable for the desktop. Python+qt is ok for Desktop apps, but does not work for a website.
Languages that compile to wasm would also be an option, (e.g. https://egui.rs with rust), but as far as i am aware none of the languages you’ve listed are in that set. (Only go would even be a contender between python, ruby, js and go)
Electron is the way to go for what the OP described
You’re probably looking for Java. Not JavaScript, Java.
They explicitly said they want to build a website. Not that you can’t go far with a Java server + HTML(X) but JS is the de facto standard for interactive websites.
Idk how I missed that. I only saw the desktop program part and the languages listed after it. I completely overlooked the website part, unless it was edited or something. But yeah, for websites JavaScript is the go-to for front-end and there are even some decent back-end options these days, although development and deployment gets a lot more complicated if you go that route. Java is still popular as a backend language for website development, and there are frameworks that have out of the box components that give you the JavaScript for free, but they’re typically expensive enterprise solutions like Adobe Experience Manager.
Edit: I just checked and it was edited, so they might have added that part after I wrote my reply.
Why java
Because it’s 2003
I missed the part where you said you’re also interested in building a website. Java is a popular and powerful programming language for desktop and mobile development. You can also use it with a framework for back-end website development, but there are better options out there. If you want something that does everything you posted then JavaScript is actually a good option. You’ll need frameworks for back-end website development and desktop development, but it’s kind of a beginner friendly language, and ChatGPT can help you set up the frameworks. It does get complicated working in the different stacks though. What do you want to build first?
Maybe you should consider a server & client architecture to use the right tool for the right job on each platform.
Take a look at Dart+Flutter.
Python would be OK. Ruby is nearly dead nowadays. JS itself is used rarely, better consider using TS (however I don’t recommend using them for anything other than web frontend). Go is a great language but it’s unpopular in GUI development.
Interesting bunch of takes…
Take a look at Dart+Flutter.
Google just laid off those teams so I doubt this is a good thing to learn if you want something useful in the long-term
Ruby is nearly dead nowadays
Demonstrably false. My career has been in the Ruby/Rails world and I just went through a job hunt where I found tons of Ruby positions
JS itself is used rarely, better consider using TS (however I don’t recommend using them for anything other than web frontend)
Full-stack JS/TS is very popular in the web-dev world.
Go is a great language
I disagree, but this is 100% a personal opinion of mine 😄
Spend a week or two with each if you can, even if you don’t stick with any you’ll be able to tell what parts you did or didn’t prefer or found difficult or easy that might help make a more informed choice. You might prefer the language features or syntax of one, but the tool chain or frameworks of another.
I think it would help narrow things down if you described what kind of website you want to build.
All three are scripting language. Don’t touch JavaScript, but consider typescript instead. Your requirements are vague, but python should probably be your first choice. It honestly does not matter which one you choose
If Ruby is interesting, check out Crystal, it’s like Ruby but static typed and compiled.
For a desktop app I would go with none of those.
If cross platform is the goal, the more important question, and independent of the programming language, is which GUI framework you will use.
Your best bet, at least if you are looking for a stable GUI framework, the best candidate may be C++ and Qt. But that’s a hassle in its own right - both C++ and Qt.
TypeScript will have some solutions for you, with web rendering as a desktop app. Golang will have Qt bindings or other more experimental/not thoroughly established+popular GUI frameworks.
My personal favorite ecosystem is .NET. It has an official cross-platform UI project MAUI, but without an official Linux target. Community extensions probably exist. Personally, I dislike the way the UI is declared and bound though (XAML).
My current interest, which I have not explored or validate yet, is using .NET but then host a web or Blazor app in it with Webview2. .NET supports cross-boundary programming, crossing web+managed/native development, and crossing web(HTML+JS)+managed.
Most of the time GUI and the framework technology is a hassle. Your question is too broad and unspecific, so there’s not a good answer.
If it’s not a “serious” project that you depend on [for your livelihood], pick and start with whatever [looks good or interesting] and go from there. If it is a “serious project” do a bit more GUI framework exploration and assessment, and pick and commit to something. If it’s a big commitment or risk, do prototyping with your candidates for verification and assessment - beyond the most simple examples, and for your specific usage.
You can count Ruby out immediately. Terrible language.
Also replace JavaScript with Typescript. It’s strictly superior.
I don’t think Go has any mature GUI libraries.
For desktop GUI your main options are:
- Qt, via C++. Probably the best option but if you don’t know C++ that’s a huge barrier.
- Qt, via Python. Reasonable but Python is quite a shit language. It’s very slow and the tooling/infrastructure is absolutely abysmal. Be prepared to bang your head against the wall trying to e.g. get relative imports to work.
- Dart/Flutter. This is quite nice but not super mature for desktop apps. Also the Dart ecosystem is very small so libraries you want may not be available.
- Electron/Typescript. This is quite a good option. Nobody here will recommend this because nerds have a slightly weird hatred of Electron because the minimum download size is like 80MB. But normally it doesn’t really matter. Especially for big apps.
For the web frontend you basically want Typescript. For the backend you can use literally any language.
I would recommend Electron for the GUI and Typescript for the web frontend and Electron GUI. It means you can use the same language everywhere and you won’t need to even implement the same program twice.
If you’re worried about the download size / RAM usage you can look into Tauri which uses your OS’s browser engine. I’ve never used it though.
Regarding tauri: One and a half years ago I looked into it as a potential alternative to using electron.
Back then I had to decide against it for my use case, because when the goal is that it’s a cross platform app, then one has to make sure that whatever “webview version” is used on all target OS, they all have to support the features one needs re one’s own app codebase. Back then I needed some “offscreen canvas” feature that chromium supported (hence electron), but which
webkit2gtk(used on Linux) didn’t at the time.https://tauri.app/v1/references/webview-versions/
So it’s not always easy to give a clear recommendation on using tauri over electron. One really has to get somewhat clear on what kind of “webview requirements” the resp. app will have.
But I do hope this will (or maybe already is) less of an issue in upcoming years (things are moving fast after all).
You can count Ruby out immediately. Terrible language.
wow.
Ever tried to follow a large Ruby codebase like Gitlab? Absolutely nightmare. Not only does it not have type annotations, so you can’t follow code by clicking, but you can’t even follow it by grepping because Rubyists seem to love generated identifiers. Even the syntax of the language makes grepping worse, e.g. the lack of brackets prevents you from grepping for function calls like
foo(.You’re talking about rails. That’s like saying Kotlin is a terrible language because your only exposure to it is with something that decided to use Glassfish Webfly Swarm and Camel.
type annotations
You can literally follow code perfectly fine in an IDE like RubyMine. It actually works much better than Python because Ruby is incredibly consistent in its language design, while Python is an absolute mess (same with JS. Try opening a large Python or JS project in PyCharm or WebStorm).
No clue what you’re talking about with grepping though. Use an IDE like I said and you can literally just “Find all usages” or “Jump to declaration”, etc.
In any case, you shouldn’t be using any of these for large projects like gitlab, so it’s completely inconsequential. Saying something like “Java is terrible, have you ever used it for a CLI? It’s so slow it’s impossible to do anything!” is idiotic because of course it is. That’s not what it’s built for. Ruby is a scripting language. Use it for scripting. It kicks Python’s ass for many reasons, JS is terrible for scripting, and while you can use something like bash or rust, the situation is incredibly painful for both.
None of this has absolutely anything to do with the language design. You’re talking about language design and equating it to being terrible and then saying it’s because you don’t use any sort of tools to actually make it work.
You’re talking about rails.
Maybe other Ruby code is better, but people always say Rails is the killer app of Ruby so…
Use an IDE like I said and you can literally just “Find all usages” or “Jump to declaration”, etc.
That only works if you have static type annotations, which seems to be very rare in the Ruby world.
In any case, you shouldn’t be using any of these for large projects like gitlab, so it’s completely inconsequential.
Well, I agree you shouldn’t use Ruby for large projects like Gitlab. But why use it for anything?
Maybe other Ruby code is better, but people always say Rails is the killer app of Ruby so…
I’ve literally never heard anyone say that…
That only works if you have static type annotations, which seems to be very rare in the Ruby world.
no. it literally works for any ruby code in any project. you do not need static type annotations at all. I can tell you’ve literally never even tried this…
Well, I agree you shouldn’t use Ruby for large projects like Gitlab. But why use it for anything?
because it’s a fantastic scripting language with a runtime that is available on almost every platform on the planet by default (yes most linux distributions include it, compared to something like python which is hardly ever included and if it is it’s 2.x instead of 3.x). It’s also much more readable than bash, python, javascript, etc. so writing a readable (and runnable everywhere) script is dead simple. Writing CLIs with it is also dead simple, while I think Python has a few better libraries for this like Click, Ruby is much more portable than Python (this isn’t my opinion, this is experience from shipping both ruby and python clis for years).
I’ve literally never heard anyone say that
Well you didn’t listen then. Google the phrase.
I can tell you’ve literally never even tried this…
I do not need to try it to know that this is fundamental impossible. But I will try it because you can go some way towards proper type knowledge without explicit annotations (e.g. Pycharm can do this for Python) and it’s better than nothing (but still not as good as actual type annotations).
It’s also much more readable than bash, python, javascript, etc. so writing a readable (and runnable everywhere)
Bash definitely. Not sure I’d agree for Python though. That’s extremely readable.
Jump to declarations or usages has absolutely nothing to do with types so I have no clue why you think type annotations to make jump to useful.
JS or really anything you’d make a web app in (I use Rust with something like Dioxus/Yew/Leptos/Tauri), C#/.NET (I use F# because OO-style languages are ugly and a hot mess, especially C# and Java), Java/JVM (I use Scala whenever I can and Kotlin otherwise), C++ with GTK or Qt. There are a lot of options but obviously anything that’s not C++ or web is gonna give you a lackluster experience (though I have a thing against web apps and will go through a lot of hoops to have my application use a native interface)
