alternatives to Java

This actually isn't even a question about Java, so if it goes in some other category, please move it there.
As mentioned in my previous post, "Getting my program to run smoothly", my JRE on my computer is on the fritz. It doesn't run right for some reason. But everything else on my computer seems to be working OK. So I started to consider writing my program in some other language. But I realized I have no idea what other language to write in. That is, I know that people write programs for Windows platforms in C++, but I don't know what language people use to write software for Mac OS9 or OSX. Anyone know?

I feel so strange asking this in a forum for Java, like I'm betraying someone. This being a java ranch, I suppose someone will tar and feather me, or even worse, challenge me to a gun duel at high noon or hang me or something. Have mercy!

Hi Kevin,

unfortunately I have no experience with Mac OS, but as current Mac OS implementations based on Darwin have a strong relationship to BSD Unix, I guess you could use almost all programming languages which are available for Unix-like operating systems: C, C++, Smalltalk, Modula, Lisp, Perl, Python, Ruby and many more depending on what kind of programs you plan to develop.

On the other hand I can't really believe that Java doesn't work on Mac. Are you sure this isn't some other problem you're facing?

Marco

The predominant languages for OS X are C, C++ and Objective C. Using C or C++ restricts you to the Carbon API, which has a very limited lifespan by now. Any new development should be done in Objective C (which can make use of the Cocoa API).

As mentioned above, just about all other languages that run on Unixish OSes can be used as well, but they can't interface easily (or at all) with the Cocoa API (which is very powerful, and really the key to developing nice "Mac-ish" applications).

As Ulf pointed out, if you are interested in writing native OS X software, Objective C and the Cocoa API is the way to go.

For cross-platform GUI programs, Java still reigns. There are a lot of Java GUI programs (the big Java IDEs being a good example) that run fine on OS X, so I don't believe that your "smoothing" problem is insurmountable, but I'm not sure where you can get further help on that.

Thank you all very much. I'll look into Cocoa and Objective C.