Which language shall I choose to create portable windows gui client that can do web service(REST) talk with my php web server? [closed]

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Closed 9 years ago.

We have an web server running cakephp that provides REST web service. Now we need to create a portable window client in simple .exe (with window form gui) that can talk with the web service in https without relying too much on other library or api. The client will send xml & receive xml. Also it will read some text file in local pc and compress it and encode it as text format, like base64, then send it by restful way to server.

I know java might do this, but we wish not to rely on jvm.

I know .NET can do this, but it relies on .NET framework a lot. When we hope to support older OS like 2003, xp, even 2000, it's a big issue to do compatibility check.

C is a choice, but not easy for us to develop or maintain.

Can other language, like python, php, ruby do this? Without install additional program?

Can we let user just download, unzip and run?

Thanks, any suggestions will be appreciated.

Answer 1

One solution would be to use tcl/tk. With this language you can create a starpack, which is a windows .exe that includes a platform-specific runtime (ie: the tcl/tk language and libraries) and your application code and assets in a single file.

On Windows (and OSX), the tk library includes support for native widgets, so your GUI can look like a "real" windows application.