Advice for someone new to application development

I'm currently a web programmer (Java/PHP/Asp) with some database skills as well (Oracle/MySql/MSSqlServer) but I have always limited myself to this area, because my career moved in that direction.

However, for personal and professional reasons, I need to expand out to application programming. I do consider myself a programmer in that I have good fundamental practices and philosophies, but when it comes to this, I am a genuine novice.

I would love any information and advice anyone has, including resources, technologies to consider, IDE's, cross platform considerations (PC & Mac), etc.

Oh, and my primary computer is now a Mac. I've heard developing for PC's on a Mac is actually doable and for some preferable. Any input on this is also welcome (sans PC or Mac bashing ).

Thanks!

I have a few suggestions for you, but I am in an extreme hurry and can't really give them all to you at this moment; however, I STRONGLY urge you to check out the Eclipse project first and foremost.

It is a wonderful tool that I feel every developer should have. If you aren't familiar, Eclipse is an open-source IDE framework. Straight out of the box, it is an excellent Java editor, but there are plugins for MANY other languages. It also does visual Swing interface editing..

Application development isn't really anything special or secret. People still make applications with simple text editors and command line tools. However, some pointers in writing an application. Definitely check out eclipse as said esp' for java based projects, netbeans is also a very cool tool, IDEs can be very helpful, but it's best if you actually know what's really going on rather then letting the IDE gloss over the difficult bits by running wizards for you, although once you understand use the wizards ;-). IDE things like code complete and auto compilation can really help speed development up as well as assist you in keeping track of all that code.

If you're developing with other people use version control like CVS, it's even helpful if you're just by yourself, nothing like click and rollback when something gets hairy.

Test, test and more testing. You can never do enough testing.

This is by no means complete. Application development is a ridiculously broad subject.
Just have fun and don't be scared when people say application, it's nothing special.

Cheers,
W

Thanks for your comments guys!

I write cross-platform apps on my Mac. If I'm dealing with a gui interface, I just use RealPC running Windows.

Most of my apps are CLI based though, so the cross-platform issue isn't really an issue.

One thing I did, for some apps that don't take much interface (ie: my fractal program) is I wrote a GUI skeletin program that includes an "app.h" file which contains all the actual code. The GUI skeletin program has all the OS specific code in it, and the header has all the program code. I can make changes at work on a PC, then bring the header files home and recompile on my Mac without any modifications.

One of my header files is a cross platform graphic tool. Also usefull.