bac240sx

I'm new to programming (so forgive my ignorance), but I need to pick a language to learn and I have to get it right the first time (due to time constraints). Essentially, I will be developing an electronic voting machine interface (much akin to the ones that will be used in the upcoming presidential election) to display ballots for voters, record votes, record time on task and all kinds of other researchy stuff, and print paper trails.

I need something that is easy(ish) to learn, yet powerful (and speedy!) enough that it is capable of thermal printing, remote (over our lab network) database R/Wing, and (this is one I have never been able to get a straight opinion on) the ability to manipulate screen resolution during the application's use. Platform considerations are a non-issue (although ideally something platform independent) and Java is out of the question (the reasons are petty - and beyond my control). Any advice?

kruptof

Are you serious? I don't mean to offend you but why would anyone give such an important task for such an important event to anyone that has no or little experience?

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bac240sx

I should clarify: 1. Yes I am serious. 2. I'm a Psychology researcher who focuses in doing usability studies within my University's Human Computer Interaction Lab. 3. I'm building a replica... (google the word: akin).

L7Sqr

Shove some of your funding the CS departments way. That would probably save you money and time.

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bac240sx

But then *I* wouldn't learn anything. Actually we tried, they weren't interested.

King

I would use C#. It is fairly easy to learn, powerful and great for GUI applications.

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lectricpharaoh

I second King's suggestion of C#. If you're looking to develop a GUI application, and Windows is an acceptable platform, then using one of the .NET languages is a good choice. There is built-in support for getting the current screen resolution and number of bits per pixel, but there is no direct support for setting these parameters. However, it's pretty trivial to use p/invoke for this.

Nonetheless, I recommend you carefully consider if you really need to do this. A regular Windows application should not be changing the screen resolution without the user requesting this unless it's running full-screen, and most programs that do this are games. I know that if I was using a simple GUI app that decided to override my settings in such a rude manner, I'd quickly uninstall/delete the program. By querying the current resolution, the program should be able to adjust itself accordingly (using a larger/smaller font, resizing controls, etc) without resorting to actually changing the resolution.

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MiKuS

python!