You want a stable performant language OO language that uses the GUI toolkit on Linux, Windows and MacOS. Your team and existing project have a C background. What do you choose in 2012 and why?

There is already an SVG editor written in Java called Kiyut Sketsa, it is unusable due to the poor performance of the Batik rendering engine (also written in Java).

It makes sense to use high level languages to manipulate the document model or to implement widgets, but when it comes to the renderer you want to be as close to the metal as possible.

If you want to go OOP from C, what would you choose?

back then c++ was probably the best bet, but today i'd at the least take a few weeks to investigate whether D was viable.

Personally, I'd choose one from many languages.

I'm not convinced C++ is a good choice for user-level applications. Maybe for the performant parts, or for compatibility.

Perhaps other factors like skillsets came into play...

We're talking about a port from C. Porting from C to C++ is much easier than porting from C to any other language...

I didn't think it was a straight port...

But, yeah, it's going to be easier. It's also an opportunity to consider another language that might improve productivity, reliability etc. in the future. Just wondering. Didn't mean to start a language war :-)

No problem, I'm not interested in a language war either - even more so because I haven't used C++ in 5 years :)

Just wanted to point out that if you have a C code base, it is way easier to port to C++, which isn't a bad language at all.