I've been looking into this a bit myself. I've come to the following conclusions. 1) Javascript, only widespread in webpages. 2) Java, clunky, non-standard GUI. 3) Python, excellent & powerful code. Done correctly, cross-platform. Major negative=no easy way to compile an .exe. 4) C++, The standard! Nearly all major apps are built with it. Combined with the GUI builder Qt, it's awesome. Major negative=difficult to learn 5) C#, M$'s 'improvement' on C++. IIRC, you can only develop with it in Visual Studio. 6) .NET, M$ proprietary code. Only cross-platform if you develop in linux using 'Mono'. Heavy dependency for users to install .NET.