What (non-Mono) language/IDE should a C# developer use for Mac OS X? [closed]

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I have a couple of small programs that a mate of mine needs ported to OS X. I've used Mono to get a couple other things working on a Mac before, but while it made the port extremely easy, it just seemed a bit unwieldy. For the apps that I'm making I don't want to have to force the person to download and install the Mono framework, nor do I want to have to teach them how to open up a terminal, navigate to the application's directory, and have to use the mono appname.exe command.

I'm an absolute lover of Visual St开发者_开发知识库udio and C#. Because of this, I'd like for my OS X development experience to be as similar to that as possible. I don't mind learning a new language in order to code for OS X, but I would like a visual designer for the GUI so that I can easily make the interface, and it'd be nice for the language to be at least somewhat similar to C# as well, although this isn't as big a requirement so long as the IDE is decently helpful. With Visual Studio I learn a lot just from the code-completion that it offers (who honestly wants to memorize a Classes' every property and method..? :) ).

What I'm looking for:

a) Good graphical interface designer that makes native-looking OS X GUIs
b) Back-end language that won't seem totally foreign to a C# developer
c) Something that runs natively on OS X without a framework needing to be installed
d) As many Visual Studio-like features as possible. (code completion, hints, etc)

Also, what is the native interface called? I see references to Cocoa, GTK, and a few others. I'd like to just use the standard Mac bits, assuming that's reasonable. All I generally need in my apps are pretty standard components like DataGridViews, ComboBoxes, TreeViews, TextBoxes, Buttons, Labels, etc.

Suggestions?

Thanks yet again.

-Sootah

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All your requirements can be satisfied with Xcode and its associated tools. There is big things afoot in improvements to Xcode that are available to developers now, but not to the general public. Expect those in the near future. Some of these changes are more like what you're used to in VS. I can't say more about it right now I'm afraid.

That said, the way the tools exist now are certainly more than suitable for your requirements, Xcode and Interface Builder. You won't be able to use C# I'm afraid in that environment, but as you said you don't mind learning a new language, might I suggest you learn Objective-C. It's quite simply the path of least resistance for mac development; and Cocoa is the native UI.

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I think you should use Objective-C/XCode to program for Mac OS X, even though it is very different from C#/Visual Studio. I'm going through this process myself (switching from being a Windows Mobile developer to an iPhone developer), and it's best if you free yourself from the expectation that things in the Mac world will ever be much like they are in the .Net world.