I want to start developing apps...

[v8s10blazer]

Yah, im bored with using everyone elses stuff. Im not a total programming noob, i know a littl e bit of pascal and VB and PHP...

Im not sure what i want to write yet. But i know i want my program to be really user friendly, IE has a gui...

What language is best for writting apps for linux and how about making the gui?

thanks, drew

[Maners]

For GUI you can use Glade 2 which will allow you to visually create application's interface. It stores the interface "description" file in XML (eg. myfirstapp.glade) which then can be processed by libglade library and used with almost any aluguage you like.

As for language there are plenty of option: Python, Ruby, PERL, C, C++ etc. Python is commonly used for writing tools in Fedora (eg. yum and yum extender) and is also easy to learn. Since you know PHP, you could also try PERL with Gtk2::GladeXML module.

[Twey]

You can even use Glade with PHP to create a full-featured graphical application.
Closest thing we have to VB is REALbasic.

[MicahCarrick]

I too came from a VB/PHP background and found libglade with C an easy enough transition. I have a tutorial on my website: http://www.micahcarrick.com/v2/content/view/28/20/

Learning C may be a far cry from VB, but it's syntax isn't that far from PHP. You have to do a little more work in C with memory, strings, and the like like but it "looks' similar to PHP. I didn't have too much trouble. Plus, the GTK+ "signals" are just like the VB "events" and the Glade Interface Designer is a lot like the VB IDE's interface designer.

That's my 2 cents.

Good luck.