Re: [gnome-love] Getting started

[Robin Sonefors <ozamosi flukkost nu>]

On lör, 2009-08-01 at 08:21 -0400, Matthew J. Fisher wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've been using the GNOME desktop in several different distros for the
> past few years, and have an interest in learning how to develop for the
> GNOME platform.
>
> I have a small project in mind, but need some advice on choice of
> programming language.  I know C, C++, and C# but the tutorials I've
> discovered so far seem to be primarily in C.  Is C still the best
> language with which to start learning GNOME development?

I would say no, unless you're really familiar with C. The C used by
GNOME looks pretty alien in some places, and will, I think, take longer
to figure out, compared to if you use the bindings for other languages.

I haven't really looked at the C++ bindings, but the C# bindings are in
my opinion very good, and I found their documentation very helpful.
MonoDevelop is also a pretty decent way to get a modern programming
environment. However, I never had to look for beginner tutorials, since
I understood GTK+ when I started using it, so I can't say anything about
avability or quality there. http://www.mono-project.com/GtkSharp has
pointers to a few tutorials and the API reference for C#.

It's also worth pointing out that the GNOME APIs are very similar
between the different languages they support. C#, for instance, can use
real namespaces, classes and properties, while C have to fake it, but
that's pretty much all the difference there is. Thus, once you figure
out the basics, you will be able to read C documentation, and use it for
coding C# without much trouble.

Good luck!