Switching from web to desktop development
Is the target platform windows? If so, consider C# with WPF.  The UI is constructed using XAML which is very similar to HTML/CSS.  C# uses the .NET framework, so while it is a much different programming language than PHP, the transition should not be too difficult.
Being a web developer (php, symfony, doctrine) for 2 years now, I was recently asked by a friend to come up with a desktop solution. So I developed a project, installed a LAMP on his machine and he is mostly happy using it now. But I'm not. It just doesn't seem right to wait for a server response from a localhost. Obviously php isn't suited for desktop development. So, my question is: what language \ framework would you advice a php programmer if he was going to develop a desktop application (something that you can install, that has it's own gui, but utilizes the similar concepts of web apps: css, javascript, orm).
I would like to bring up Python as a possible answer to my question. Does anyone have an experience of developing a desktop app with Python, utilizing an ORM and(or) HTML-based GUI?