Matrix of each desktop application development platform

Here are matrixes of some development platform.

Any option or complementarity is appreciated .

A glancing maxtrix

User Interface	Document/Community/employees	Cross-platform	Development efficiency
Air(Flex)	Good looking, it has abundant animation effect.	Many official document/Few employees	MS/Windows, Linux , Mac Os	Easy to editing user interface. Use css to render the style.
WPS(.net)	Good looking.	a few document/Few employees.	MS/Windows
Swing(java)	Unsightly	Extensive document/ Rich community/ many employees.	MS/Windows, Linux , Mac Os	Slow.
QT(C++).	Good looking, it has different style in different system.	Extensive document/ Rich community/ Few employees.	MS/Windows , Linux , Mac OS	Easy to Editing user interface. But it maybe take time to redraw the style

Other Choice:

GTK(PHP): it is not used universal.( http://gtk.php.net/)

Delphi: it seem outdated

Python: free, easy to learn, can run on any OS.

A maxtrix base on some specific issues

1. Ability to monitor file system for changes

2. Robustness for connecting to web-service .. and deal with intermittent / lost connections

3. Photo transcode

4. Video transcode

5. Ability to control CPU load

6. Ability to control network load

7. Boot time impact

8. Update mechanism

9. Ability / difficulty to do notifications pop-ups

I am not familiar with C++. But there is a word , “C++ can do what java can do.”

Detail:

1	Ability to monitor file system for changes
Flex	do periodic job by flash.utils.Timer. Flash.filesystem.File.getDirectoryListing().
Java	do periodic job by thread.(Quartz). Java.io.File.listFiles()
C++
Comment	The language should support both periodic job and files scan.

2	Robustness for connecting to web-service .. and deal with intermittent / lost connections
Flex	By adding “RANGE: bytes=*****” to http header, and using flash.filesystem.FileStream to write, to support Resuming broken downloads/uploads
Java	By adding “RANGE: bytes=*****” to http header, and using java.io.RandomAccessFile to write, to support Resuming broken downloads/uploads
C++
Comment	The language should support to modify http header and have ability to write a file from a offset offered.

3	Photo transcode
Flex	use flash.display.BitmapData, mx.graphics.codec.JPEGEncoder , flash.net.FileReference
Java	has implement.(Java Image/IO)
C++
Comment	The language should have image API to read, convert and export.

4	Video transcode
Flex	use FFmpeg (NativeProcess , nativeProcessStartupInfo)
Java	use FFmpeg.( java.lang.ProcessBuilder)
C++
Comment	FFmpeg is a cross-platform solution for Video transcode. The language should have API to run system program and arguments.

5	Ability to control CPU load
Flex	There is no function sleep in As3, and flash.utils.Timer can simulate it. But it is not what we want.
Java	make the threads sleep , or have lower priority
C++	make the threads sleep
Comment	there is no way to control the CPU load or usage directly, or every application will run as fast as they can . correct me if I'm wrong. But we can optimize code , reduce the IO operation or let the thread sleep. In Windows: right click the java process in TaskManager and change priority. In Unix: nice [-increment | +increment] java/as3.

6	Ability to control network load
Flex
Java
C++
Comment	I have not found some useful resource about it but some newwork monitor. Do you have some suggestion?

7	Boot time impact
Flex	Air have no api to modify registry but read, but we can use ”sc create” to register it as a window server instead.
Java	modify windows registry by jni (http://trustice.com/java/jnireg/)
C++
Comment	Windows: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] auto run when system start completely [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce] run only once [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices] register as a Window Server . Linux: /etc/rc.d/re?.d /etc/rc.d/init.d

8	Update mechanism
Flex	Flex have a strong update framework . We should not release any path , and the application will update automatically.
Java	one answer is Java Web Start.( http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/java_webstart.xml) (a part of JRE 5.0) The system will download jar if the version has changed.
C++
Comment	The flex has better experience with comfortable updating , and is kind to developer as it isn’t necessary to change code. About Java(JWS), if user’ machine has not install JRE5.0 , or above, it should install Java Web Start first , and developer should change code for security reason , and all code and resource is supported to be compressed into one jar.

1	Ability / difficulty to do notifications pop-ups
Flex	There are two very good and free components available that we can use Flex Notification(http://afoucal.free.fr/index.php/2009/07/06/flex-notification ) FlexGrowl(http://lukesh.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/rawr-flexgrowl-component-available)
Java	Swt components A sample from http://hexapixel.com/2009/06/30/creating-a-notification-popup-widget
C++
Comment