Ever Since 1995, there has been a jump in programming languages. The computer industry has risen over the past couple of decades. Therefore, giving programmers a bright career. Also due to programming, our world has evolved so much. From your digital clock to the most complex robot, programming is involved. This is the era of smart work. Smart work is considered better than hard work. Therefore, cross-platform programming languages are a thing nowadays. So let’s talk about it.
What is cross-platform programming?
When you build an app, you need to pick a certain platform. The platform on which you are going to be building that app. For example, you want to build your app for Android or IOS or maybe Windows. You have to choose a certain platform on which you are going to start your project. So the problem is, if you want to build an Android app, you will need JAVA language. If you want to make an IOS, you might want to do it on SWIFT. And in windows there are is C# pr XAML.
So these are some of the most popular languages we use today. These are the standard languages for different platforms. Here’s a question, what’s the problem will do so? Let’s say that you want to make an app. The app that will work across all platform. Consider you are building a game for all platforms. Then you will have to become a Java, Swift, and C# developed if you want to make an app like that. Or you might want to hire different people to do the work for you. Therefore, it’ll be quite expensive or time taking.
This makes it quite impossible. There are very rare people who are good at all platforms. Also, there is some called a standard UI of a language. So it’s almost impossible because every language has different UI elements. So the design consistency will not be managed. Let’s say that a user uses your app on android. He then buys an iPhone. On the iPhone, he wants to install the same app. The design might be changed due to the change in languages in which you build that app.
Solution
So what is the solution? How can we avoid this mess? Cross-platform is the solution. Cross-platform fills the gaps between all these platforms. So the concept is pretty simple. Let’s talk about some of the most commonly used programming languages. These are HTML, JAVASCRIPT, and CSS. These are the languages of Web Development. The best advantage of using these languages is that they are pretty robust. They can adapt to different screen sizes. Of course, people are always using different sizes of devices. Imagine if we can make these languages one and deploy them to these different platforms as I’ve mentioned above? This is basically what cross-platform is.
Remember Adobe Flash Player? It was one of the earliest cross-platform languages. Let’s talk about some cross-platform tools.
Cross-Platform Tools
It’s pretty simple. The tools that we use to actually build a cross-platform app is Cross-Platform tool. There are tons and tons of them in the market. Let’s talk about some of the cross-platform tools that are being used by industries nowadays.
1) PhoneGap
The phone gap was made by Adobe. It is one of the best cross-platform tools to rise on the surface. It contains an open-source framework. The name of the framework is Apache Cordova and it provides all the phone gap tools to you.
The basic feature of the Phone gap tool is to provide user HTML and CSS support in Javascript for making Cross-platform apps.
2) Appcelerator
Appcelerator is specifically designed for android app development. It makes the whole process of actually building android apps pretty simple. By just using Javascript, you can make awesome apps due to the tools provided in tools.
The main focus of the Appcelerator is that you can make apps for any platform in it. You can also discover bugs and crashes and even the causes of them.
3) Corona
Corona is one of the best tools for creating games and apps for all platforms. The tools provide the user with different features. You can easily debug and update your code. It shows the result of a real-time device.
Corona is used to develop 2D games. It is free to use. It provides high-quality graphics for the programmer to make apps.
4) Xamarin
Microsoft’s Xamarin allows making apps for different platforms. It uses a single .net code. The interface of Xamarin works just like the native interface of the platform. It also has a feature where it can boost the app up to 75% just live native apps.
It provides features like Debugging, User Interface Design Tool, and Editing.
So these are some of the most popular tools in the industry. Now let’s talk about Best Cross-Platform Programming Languages.
Languages for Development
The list (Unordered) compiled considering the following circumstances:
- Popularity
- Future
- Salary
1) Python
There isn’t any list without python in it. In 1991, Python was developed. Judo van Rossum developed it. Python has gained some great popularity recently. Therefore, many companies recommend python in 2019. Judo works at Dropbox, developing Python. Python is a vast language and it can do basically anything any language can.
The biggest advantage of Python is that it is most simple yet powerful. It is used in branches like Machine Learning, Data Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence. Python has tons of applications. For Web developers, Python has some really cool frameworks. For example, Django (pronounced Jango) for web development. It’s the best time to learn python. The use of python has risen a lot. Whether it’s a small or large business. They use python.
Tons of Jobs are available for Python. Air BnB, Dropbox, and Google use Python, Coursera uses Python. NASA also uses Python to write their own software. It’s the best starter Language with Cross-platform functionality.
2) Go, Lang:
Go lang, as the name is work of engineers at Google. The process of making Go Lang was pretty interesting. Those Engineers made a literal list of what they didn’t like about other languages. Therefore, they decided to develop their own language with no drawbacks Adobe, Dell, Facebook and Google use this language.
Its popularity has risen since 2012 as it was made in 2012. Moreover, in the near future, it will be a hot language. There will be a demand for GO Lang in the market. Go Lang is in the top 5 most paid programming languages ever. So that’s pretty good. If you work on learning Go Lang now, in the near future, you will be demanded a lot by the industry.
In my opinion, it is an extremely valuable language. It also supports cross-platform programming. Basically, it’s better than Java as far as, cross-platform is concerned. Google literally developed it, considering the problems in other languages. So at this point. Go lang is a starter pack of programming.
3) Java
Java was created more than 20 years ago in 1991. James Gosling created it. James is currently working at Amazon as a software engineer. Java has its reputation as a “General purpose programming language”. Therefore, making it very well known to everyone on the internet. Moreover, tons of companies run their software on Java to this date. Also, many companies are still developing programs in java.
Java is a cross-platform, in a sense that almost everything developed in java can run on all platforms is there is Java Virtual Machine. 45.3% of people use Java to this date. Over time, it’s popularity has decreased though. Due to the fact that it’s very complex to use.
I recommended Java because this is a very vast language if we take a look at the surface. In cross-platform, it might not be as tough as the other one I mentioned. That’s why I’m recommending it at the very last.
Final Word
In 2019, we all should focus on learning cross-platform languages. As the future is smart. Cross-platform will make programming easy and time-saving so that we can do a lot of stuff in a small-time. In the future, it is expected that there will be further developed in Cross-platform languages. But some of the languages, being cross-platform are still perfect as of now.
In other words, the future of Programming is really bright. To actually make it even bright, we have to focus on cross-platform programming languages. It’s not all bright using the cross-platform technique though. Some compromises are obviously made. They are as follows:
- Testing on Cross-platform is really difficult
- The feature set is limited to that of certain tools
- Applications designed on cross-platform tools don’t always run on their native devices.
- Different platforms need different native packages and they are needed to be installed.
- There are many security problems too.
Thank you for reading this article.