×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Windows Language

Windows Language

Windows Language

(OP)
Hello,

My objective is to make a simple FEA program with a GUI for a Windows (Vista/7 32/64bit) platform. My skills in programming goes as far Matlab scripts, so you can easily say I'm a newbie to programming.

My question is: Which language will with 'simple' programming (as similar to scripting as possible) enable me to make a program with a GUI?

I just need a place to start and a language to learn. Is it VB, VBS, Java or a variation of C or a totally different language I should look at? And also if you could point me towards some literature (book, tutorial or webpage) I'd appreciate the help.

Thanks in advance
P

RE: Windows Language

Why not use a program that already has the GUI done for you; i.e. a spreadsheet?

You can use VBA to get things working, and concentrate on the FEA aspects, and link to compiled routines later if you need to.

I develop a frame analysis program in Excel, starting from a single beam analysis here:

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/frame-analysis-with-excel-1-single-beam/

Follow links in the comments for later installments, or search the blog for "Frame Analysis with Excel"

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services
http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/
 

RE: Windows Language

I used to work for a fairly large company and used Matlab everyday and even wrote quite a few GUI's in Matlab.  When I left that job for a smaller company, I found out they didn't have a Matlab license so I went searching for some free alternatives.  I looked at SciLab, Octave and a couple others but ultimately settled on Pythonxy.  Website:  http://www.pythonxy.com/

Pythonxy is a distribution of Python that is built for scientific/engineering development.  It comes with NumPy and SciPy, which are packages that have many common scientific and engineering functions.  It includes a tool called Spyder which has a user interface that is similar to Matlab.  It comes with PyQt, which is a great tool for making GUI's.  

One warning, though.  You'll want to make sure you have a good grasp of Python (and object oriented programming in general) before you start GUI programming.   

RE: Windows Language

Brad - I hadn't heard of PythonXY - it looks great! (although not exactly compact at 400 MB+ for the full download).

I still think a spreadsheet would be more appropriate for the OP's needs though!

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services
http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/
 

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources