>I am a beginner for LINUX.. please help me to answering these questions below:
> >
> >What is the best programming language, if I want to create application software in LINUX (for Mandrake and SUSEE)?
>> and can my current VB6 or VC++ application running on it or is there any plug-ins for running my VB6 application?
>> thanks or any answer
> >
> >
> >Regards
>>Winan

> I've found that the GPL (free) tool from the KDE organization, called KDevelop, is VERY nice!
> Version 2.0 is supposed to be released in Sept, about the same time that KDE 2.0 is.
> http://www.kdevelop.org


Winan, if you want to run Microsoft Applications such as your VB6 stuff on a Linux box, you can do it:

Obtain and run a program called: vmware

VMWare will let you install Microsoft Windows and any MS Windows programs such as your favorite VB6 authoring
tools AS AN APPLICATION running under linux! That means (with a few exceptions such as some games)
that you can use your same application development enviroment under linux. However, you would NOT be
developing for LINUX and you want not be developing natively under Linux. As I think you are asking what
new tools/languages should you be looking at, well, it depends on what kinds of applications you are trying to
build.

In general, C++ (Gnu's C++ is called g++) is the most-used programming language under Linux. If you are
looking for a GUI kind of development environment as with Visual Studio or whatever, well, there are some
options (see Evan's and Jerry K's references). Many of us just use a text editor and a debugger because we
are used to doing things by hand and we can type faster than we can click with a mouse.

There, an editor like vi (or emacs), a compiler (gcc or make), and a debugger (gdb) are what many use.
However, this may be a bit harsh for those coming from a totally-GUI development environment.


Now, you asked specifically about Visual Basic analogs.
Well, I'm not aware of any "ports" of VB to Linux, nor can I really imagine one, nor, quite frankly, would I want to.
Visual Basic is a "black box"
that would have to be reverse-engineered to produce a port, since Microsoft is not (yet) ported VB to linux.
Except for people wanting to simply port their M$ stuff to the new linux environment, there is no reason to
want to use VB, since there are better products out there.

However, VB is generally used as a simple scripting language.
There are several replacements used under linux, depending on how specialized you need it to be.

There are "shell scripts" (bash and tcsh) which are the eqivalents of .BAT files (only much more powerful
of course).

The best known language (besides gcc) is called: perl
It is often used for Web CGI programming. Perl's nickname is: "the Swiss Army knife of computer languages".
It is extremely versatile, interpreted, but compilable. Quick to develop. An aweful lot of really great and useful
features. You really should learn some perl. (and "mod-perl" the apache-web-server-knowledgeable-and-optimized library of perl modules)

There are a few other useful languages, depending on what you are doing.
In the case of CGI and especially CGI database interfaces, a new language called php is the emerging standard!
php is awesome. apache plus php plus postgresql (or oracle or mysql) is a very strong combination.

You will find that there's a sql database called postgresql. No Fox native (yet :-) But, php integrates very tightly
with postgres, and of course, you can use fox front ends on client Microsoft Windows PC's to access *ql
databases on your linux servers.

THere's a language called python which is used for more graphics intensive applications.