Borland is porting Delphi (an object oriented version of Pascal used for writing Windows apps) and C++ Builder to Linux. This is a great move for them, because it gives them some leverage in their neverending battle against the world of Visual Basic and Visual C++. After they release the ports, it should be pretty easy to write code that cross-compiles under Windows and Linux. By using Borland-supplied wrappers, developers will be able to applications that look like native Gnome or KDE apps under Linux, and native Win32 apps under Windows. Plus, there are tons of Delphi developers in the PC world that will suddenly be Linux developers as well. Even though there are already lots of good programming languages and compilers available in the Linux world, I think that these tools will find a very comfortable and useful niche when they arrive.