Qt is cute - Are we facing the new Java?
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Y'all know, I made the jump from the C# world to the C++ / Qt world. I collected my first feelings from the past few months. I got to work with the Qt framework to implement the Syslog protocol (RFC 5424 compliant, client library & server). 3 months have passed until now since I started the work in the beginning of March and I gotta say, as soon as you get the philosophy of Qt and C++ it is a pleasure to work with this framework. Even though they haven't left many standard C++ expressions (malloc is replaced with qMalloc, std::string with the QString class) it brings a lot of advantages against the Microsoft VC++ .Net framework. These advantages are: - Posix-free multithreading (dunno if they use it under the hood when running on Linux - However, that takes a lot of complexity out of the application) - Wide variety of supported platforms: Windows, OS X, Many Linux/Unix distribution, they are even planning a Raspberry Pi optimized release - Free under the GPL (Companies may buy a seperate licence) - I love VS 2010, and they offer a plgin to develop Qt applications within VS 2010 Long story short, Qt is a very powerful C++ framework for platform-independent development. And IMHO a lot better than Java. What do you think? Has Qt the capabilities to overrun Java and make the world a better place? cheers, Marco Bertschi
**Marco Bertschi
Qt is great on the surface, probably much better than Java, I don't know enough Java to really comment. However Qt's Achilles heal is that at least as of V4.8 its back end is a mess. Sure it works on 3 or 4 platforms but adding another platform is probably 25,000 person hours of dev time and each one after that more because although the back end is ported it wasn't actually designed to be portable to any platforms other than the original Unix/Windows targets. Ultimately Qt will either be reengineered at truly vast expense, Nokia couldn't afford it, or will run into the sand.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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Y'all know, I made the jump from the C# world to the C++ / Qt world. I collected my first feelings from the past few months. I got to work with the Qt framework to implement the Syslog protocol (RFC 5424 compliant, client library & server). 3 months have passed until now since I started the work in the beginning of March and I gotta say, as soon as you get the philosophy of Qt and C++ it is a pleasure to work with this framework. Even though they haven't left many standard C++ expressions (malloc is replaced with qMalloc, std::string with the QString class) it brings a lot of advantages against the Microsoft VC++ .Net framework. These advantages are: - Posix-free multithreading (dunno if they use it under the hood when running on Linux - However, that takes a lot of complexity out of the application) - Wide variety of supported platforms: Windows, OS X, Many Linux/Unix distribution, they are even planning a Raspberry Pi optimized release - Free under the GPL (Companies may buy a seperate licence) - I love VS 2010, and they offer a plgin to develop Qt applications within VS 2010 Long story short, Qt is a very powerful C++ framework for platform-independent development. And IMHO a lot better than Java. What do you think? Has Qt the capabilities to overrun Java and make the world a better place? cheers, Marco Bertschi
**Marco Bertschi
Marco Bertschi wrote:
Has Qt the capabilities to overrun Java
Java is mostly used for enterprise back-end and that's not something that Qt covers. If there is any future to Qt, I believe it is for mobile UI.
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It seems to me there are fewer and fewer scenarios where one needs a client-side UI framework. Those sort of things tend to move to the web, one way or another.
My Messianic Jewish blog: Kineti L'Tziyon My software blog: Debugger.Break() Judah Himango
The NSA is peeking over your shoulder and into your shorts! :^) :-O :omg: X| :mad:
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein -
It seems to me there are fewer and fewer scenarios where one needs a client-side UI framework. Those sort of things tend to move to the web, one way or another.
My Messianic Jewish blog: Kineti L'Tziyon My software blog: Debugger.Break() Judah Himango
and the quality of the offerings goes down and down the fewer rich native interfaces we have. Sadly I think the trend is going to continue until we're stuck with effectively thin clients. You couldn't find a good rich twitter client if you tried nowadays (for example.) /rantlet
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and the quality of the offerings goes down and down the fewer rich native interfaces we have. Sadly I think the trend is going to continue until we're stuck with effectively thin clients. You couldn't find a good rich twitter client if you tried nowadays (for example.) /rantlet
Rich clients tend to raise the tide of web apps that work everywhere. However, I wouldn't describe most web apps as thin clients. Gmail, Trello, heck, even Code Project, are client-side code heavy; they're actually thick. It just so happens to run in a web browser.
My Messianic Jewish blog: Kineti L'Tziyon My software blog: Debugger.Break() Judah Himango
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Rich clients tend to raise the tide of web apps that work everywhere. However, I wouldn't describe most web apps as thin clients. Gmail, Trello, heck, even Code Project, are client-side code heavy; they're actually thick. It just so happens to run in a web browser.
My Messianic Jewish blog: Kineti L'Tziyon My software blog: Debugger.Break() Judah Himango
Sure. I'll certainly grant your point about Rich clients. But in order to have a non-native 'rich client' solution they necessarily have to succumb to an inescapable push to lowest common denominator designs and solutions. 'work everywhere' is an illusion of 80/20s. More and more they seem to have "most features, most of the time." We've got a landscape now where applications have become 'apps' in a very real sense. Quasi-functional crapware. Look at Dan's ToDo app for instance. That thing is awesome. It doesn't REALLY do that much. But it simply couldn't be made into a reasonably performing browser hosted application. You'd be stuck with browser UI elements and keyboard assignments and a host of unholy hacks to try and approximate a rich interface. Plus, with these things, you can never quite escape the feeling that you're running in a browser. Personally I think MORE applications should be native, compiled code. They're harder to write. So we're doomed to a decade of phpers and html5 schlock. They're reinventing user interface design from the ground up. A pox on it all. and get off my lawn.
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Sure. I'll certainly grant your point about Rich clients. But in order to have a non-native 'rich client' solution they necessarily have to succumb to an inescapable push to lowest common denominator designs and solutions. 'work everywhere' is an illusion of 80/20s. More and more they seem to have "most features, most of the time." We've got a landscape now where applications have become 'apps' in a very real sense. Quasi-functional crapware. Look at Dan's ToDo app for instance. That thing is awesome. It doesn't REALLY do that much. But it simply couldn't be made into a reasonably performing browser hosted application. You'd be stuck with browser UI elements and keyboard assignments and a host of unholy hacks to try and approximate a rich interface. Plus, with these things, you can never quite escape the feeling that you're running in a browser. Personally I think MORE applications should be native, compiled code. They're harder to write. So we're doomed to a decade of phpers and html5 schlock. They're reinventing user interface design from the ground up. A pox on it all. and get off my lawn.
As a former MFC, then WinForms, then WPF, then Silverlight developer, I am now at the point in my career where I believe the web is just better for users: Zero installation, universal CTRL+F, universal text selection and copy, you're always running the latest version, no patches to install, nothing to uninstall, resources like images and audio and video can be viewed independently of the app and even saved locally; the whole model is transparent. It's good for developers, too. We're not locked into this mess: "only people running Windows Zanzibar or later with .NET 4.5 SP2 installed can run my app." No DLL hell, your app is instantly visible to search engines. You're right that it is lowest common denominator. But frankly, most rich client apps are heavyweight over-bloats. I welcome use simpler solutions. :-) Now that I've said my peace, I'll get off your lawn.
My Messianic Jewish blog: Kineti L'Tziyon My software blog: Debugger.Break() Judah Himango
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Y'all know, I made the jump from the C# world to the C++ / Qt world. I collected my first feelings from the past few months. I got to work with the Qt framework to implement the Syslog protocol (RFC 5424 compliant, client library & server). 3 months have passed until now since I started the work in the beginning of March and I gotta say, as soon as you get the philosophy of Qt and C++ it is a pleasure to work with this framework. Even though they haven't left many standard C++ expressions (malloc is replaced with qMalloc, std::string with the QString class) it brings a lot of advantages against the Microsoft VC++ .Net framework. These advantages are: - Posix-free multithreading (dunno if they use it under the hood when running on Linux - However, that takes a lot of complexity out of the application) - Wide variety of supported platforms: Windows, OS X, Many Linux/Unix distribution, they are even planning a Raspberry Pi optimized release - Free under the GPL (Companies may buy a seperate licence) - I love VS 2010, and they offer a plgin to develop Qt applications within VS 2010 Long story short, Qt is a very powerful C++ framework for platform-independent development. And IMHO a lot better than Java. What do you think? Has Qt the capabilities to overrun Java and make the world a better place? cheers, Marco Bertschi
**Marco Bertschi
Just a remark on the aside: I too like VS2010, but keep in mind if you ever "upgrade" to VS2012, Microsoft has stripped the feature to create projects that output MSI install files, out of 2012. It took me by surprise AFTER paying for VS2012. :confused: I have no idea whether this is of any importance to you, but I now have to run both versions on my system. I keep 2010 just to do MSI projects, after building the basic application in 2012.
Cornelius Henning I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. -- Isaac Asimov It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis
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The NSA is peeking over your shoulder and into your shorts! :^) :-O :omg: X| :mad:
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einsteinahmed zahmed wrote:
peeking over your shoulder and into your shorts
Unfortunate, considering how many males keep over two-thirds of their brain down there, until they in their mid-fifties, and either evolve, or die. yours, Bill
“Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection." Edward Sapir, 1929
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ahmed zahmed wrote:
peeking over your shoulder and into your shorts
Unfortunate, considering how many males keep over two-thirds of their brain down there, until they in their mid-fifties, and either evolve, or die. yours, Bill
“Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection." Edward Sapir, 1929
So,
if (PSA > 10)
BrainTumor = true;
else
JustPlainCrazy = true;Will Rogers never met me.
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Just a remark on the aside: I too like VS2010, but keep in mind if you ever "upgrade" to VS2012, Microsoft has stripped the feature to create projects that output MSI install files, out of 2012. It took me by surprise AFTER paying for VS2012. :confused: I have no idea whether this is of any importance to you, but I now have to run both versions on my system. I keep 2010 just to do MSI projects, after building the basic application in 2012.
Cornelius Henning I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. -- Isaac Asimov It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis
Cornelius Henning wrote:
Microsoft has stripped the feature to create projects that output MSI install files,
Creating installers has always been and will always be a PITA, especially when any part of it is created by MS. I have no idea wether you have alread yfound out about its, but I have seen an interesting hint pointing out that creating InstallShield LE installer is available for VS 2012 project type:
InstallShield Professional 2012 Limited Edition has been released and is downloadable via the New Project->Other Project Types->Setup and Deployment->Setup and Deployment->Enable InstallShield Limited Edition template. This will launch an .htm page which will link you to the InstallShield download site. If for some reason this does not open the web page you can launch it manually using this path On x64: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\InstallShield\InstallShieldProject\1033\InstallShield_pro.html On x86: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\InstallShield\InstallShieldProject\1033\InstallShield_pro.html If you were using the Beta version and did not see the InstallShield template, this is due to a bug that placed the InstallShield template directly under Other Project Types.
Another idea is the use of the WiX Toolset, but IMHO they provide you the ultimate PITA.
**Marco Bertschi
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As a former MFC, then WinForms, then WPF, then Silverlight developer, I am now at the point in my career where I believe the web is just better for users: Zero installation, universal CTRL+F, universal text selection and copy, you're always running the latest version, no patches to install, nothing to uninstall, resources like images and audio and video can be viewed independently of the app and even saved locally; the whole model is transparent. It's good for developers, too. We're not locked into this mess: "only people running Windows Zanzibar or later with .NET 4.5 SP2 installed can run my app." No DLL hell, your app is instantly visible to search engines. You're right that it is lowest common denominator. But frankly, most rich client apps are heavyweight over-bloats. I welcome use simpler solutions. :-) Now that I've said my peace, I'll get off your lawn.
My Messianic Jewish blog: Kineti L'Tziyon My software blog: Debugger.Break() Judah Himango
Judah Himango wrote:
It's good for developers, too.
Naa, same mess on the web: Different browsers, different rendering engines and every one of them is interpreting HTML in a different way. Ask Maunder about how he loves to support IE 8.
Judah Himango wrote:
But frankly, most rich client apps are heavyweight over-bloats.
Definately, yes. But did you ever work with the HP Quality center[^]? It is called a "Web application", but have a look at the chapter "System requirements" :~ :wtf: . cheers Marco
**Marco Bertschi
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So,
if (PSA > 10)
BrainTumor = true;
else
JustPlainCrazy = true;Will Rogers never met me.
-
Y'all know, I made the jump from the C# world to the C++ / Qt world. I collected my first feelings from the past few months. I got to work with the Qt framework to implement the Syslog protocol (RFC 5424 compliant, client library & server). 3 months have passed until now since I started the work in the beginning of March and I gotta say, as soon as you get the philosophy of Qt and C++ it is a pleasure to work with this framework. Even though they haven't left many standard C++ expressions (malloc is replaced with qMalloc, std::string with the QString class) it brings a lot of advantages against the Microsoft VC++ .Net framework. These advantages are: - Posix-free multithreading (dunno if they use it under the hood when running on Linux - However, that takes a lot of complexity out of the application) - Wide variety of supported platforms: Windows, OS X, Many Linux/Unix distribution, they are even planning a Raspberry Pi optimized release - Free under the GPL (Companies may buy a seperate licence) - I love VS 2010, and they offer a plgin to develop Qt applications within VS 2010 Long story short, Qt is a very powerful C++ framework for platform-independent development. And IMHO a lot better than Java. What do you think? Has Qt the capabilities to overrun Java and make the world a better place? cheers, Marco Bertschi
**Marco Bertschi
Not too sure if it could overun Java. It's still not a fully native package, as it's requiring extra libs at runtime. I'd say perhaps look at others too (e.g. wxWidgets or many others http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_platform-independent_GUI_libraries[^]), but I can't see any fully system / platform agnostic UI ever working without some compromises: Either stick to the lowest common denominator (like Java's old AWT), or add some dependencies which then graphically draws the UI elements (which in turn is most probably not too efficient and/or requires lots of dependencies). But the one thing where Qt (and those others like wxWidgets and Lazarus) will not eat away Java's place is that they need (at least) a recompile for a different system/platform. Not a biggie, but still a bit cumbersome when it comes to install time. Here I see a bigger posibility for something like Python with Tk, especially seeing so many devs using Python these days. Or any other framework it seems: http://wiki.python.org/moin/GuiProgramming[^] As for web based apps, I'm sure it "can" be done. But it's like the extreme between the compromises: Either you have only the absolute basic HTML elements, or your app is anything BUT thin. With some frameworks you can probably have your own code seem thin to you, but that framework is then similar in principle to the others' dependencies. What I can't seem to get my head around though: Why is Java used mainly as back-end (from one of the previous comments)? Wouldn't a backend be much more efficient if written & executed natively on whatever server system/platform it's going to run? Why would you need a VM intermediary if it's only going to serve data? Is portable really needed for a backend? Or is it a situation of those companies unable to figure what system/platform they want for their server - i.e. changing the server on a monthly basis? To me any "portable" app's strength is in the fact that it could run most anywhere and look & feel much the same wherever you run it, not so much it's performance on any one single installation. Perhaps I'm missing something, but logically it just doesn't make sense does it?
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Y'all know, I made the jump from the C# world to the C++ / Qt world. I collected my first feelings from the past few months. I got to work with the Qt framework to implement the Syslog protocol (RFC 5424 compliant, client library & server). 3 months have passed until now since I started the work in the beginning of March and I gotta say, as soon as you get the philosophy of Qt and C++ it is a pleasure to work with this framework. Even though they haven't left many standard C++ expressions (malloc is replaced with qMalloc, std::string with the QString class) it brings a lot of advantages against the Microsoft VC++ .Net framework. These advantages are: - Posix-free multithreading (dunno if they use it under the hood when running on Linux - However, that takes a lot of complexity out of the application) - Wide variety of supported platforms: Windows, OS X, Many Linux/Unix distribution, they are even planning a Raspberry Pi optimized release - Free under the GPL (Companies may buy a seperate licence) - I love VS 2010, and they offer a plgin to develop Qt applications within VS 2010 Long story short, Qt is a very powerful C++ framework for platform-independent development. And IMHO a lot better than Java. What do you think? Has Qt the capabilities to overrun Java and make the world a better place? cheers, Marco Bertschi
**Marco Bertschi
Qt is hardly new, so if it was to replace JAVA it would have already. I had the pleasure to work with Qt when I was developing for Symbian^3. I did love it and C++ seemed much simpler than VC++. But as some have mentioned... Apples and Oranges... Maybe after the apocalypse we get rid of Java.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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Marco Bertschi wrote:
Has Qt the capabilities to overrun Java
Java is mostly used for enterprise back-end and that's not something that Qt covers. If there is any future to Qt, I believe it is for mobile UI.
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Java is mostly used for enterprise back-end and that's not something that Qt covers.
I don't believe that to be true. Qt doesn't lack that kind of capabilities.
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
If there is any future to Qt, I believe it is for mobile UI.
I saw Qt die on mobile UI along Symbian
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson ---- Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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Y'all know, I made the jump from the C# world to the C++ / Qt world. I collected my first feelings from the past few months. I got to work with the Qt framework to implement the Syslog protocol (RFC 5424 compliant, client library & server). 3 months have passed until now since I started the work in the beginning of March and I gotta say, as soon as you get the philosophy of Qt and C++ it is a pleasure to work with this framework. Even though they haven't left many standard C++ expressions (malloc is replaced with qMalloc, std::string with the QString class) it brings a lot of advantages against the Microsoft VC++ .Net framework. These advantages are: - Posix-free multithreading (dunno if they use it under the hood when running on Linux - However, that takes a lot of complexity out of the application) - Wide variety of supported platforms: Windows, OS X, Many Linux/Unix distribution, they are even planning a Raspberry Pi optimized release - Free under the GPL (Companies may buy a seperate licence) - I love VS 2010, and they offer a plgin to develop Qt applications within VS 2010 Long story short, Qt is a very powerful C++ framework for platform-independent development. And IMHO a lot better than Java. What do you think? Has Qt the capabilities to overrun Java and make the world a better place? cheers, Marco Bertschi
**Marco Bertschi
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It seems to me there are fewer and fewer scenarios where one needs a client-side UI framework. Those sort of things tend to move to the web, one way or another.
My Messianic Jewish blog: Kineti L'Tziyon My software blog: Debugger.Break() Judah Himango
It's a pendulum. Client-side vs. server-side has been swinging back and forth for decades, since long before the web, for the same reasons. ("It makes no sense to waste all that ever-cheaper client-side processing power and overwhelm servers," vs. "It is a beast to keep client-side applications up-to-date.") Sometimes it goes both ways at once, like the last few years, where we've seen "everything moving to the web" except simultaneously "everything moving to mobile apps". I don't think we've seen the last of this back-and-forth trend, especially if any decent number of people takes up the reasonable concerns about the implications of mixing "everything I am and do taking place on someone else's servers" with "companies sell my data and governments read it all."
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Judah Himango wrote:
It's good for developers, too.
Naa, same mess on the web: Different browsers, different rendering engines and every one of them is interpreting HTML in a different way. Ask Maunder about how he loves to support IE 8.
Judah Himango wrote:
But frankly, most rich client apps are heavyweight over-bloats.
Definately, yes. But did you ever work with the HP Quality center[^]? It is called a "Web application", but have a look at the chapter "System requirements" :~ :wtf: . cheers Marco
**Marco Bertschi
Nobody builds web apps that work just on IE anymore. That's vestigial stuff from the 90s, Marco. Yes, supporting old IE (IE 8 and below) is a pain. Having experience in both native and web dev, I believe web is best path forward.
My Messianic Jewish blog: Kineti L'Tziyon My software blog: Debugger.Break() Judah Himango
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Cornelius Henning wrote:
Microsoft has stripped the feature to create projects that output MSI install files,
Creating installers has always been and will always be a PITA, especially when any part of it is created by MS. I have no idea wether you have alread yfound out about its, but I have seen an interesting hint pointing out that creating InstallShield LE installer is available for VS 2012 project type:
InstallShield Professional 2012 Limited Edition has been released and is downloadable via the New Project->Other Project Types->Setup and Deployment->Setup and Deployment->Enable InstallShield Limited Edition template. This will launch an .htm page which will link you to the InstallShield download site. If for some reason this does not open the web page you can launch it manually using this path On x64: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\InstallShield\InstallShieldProject\1033\InstallShield_pro.html On x86: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\InstallShield\InstallShieldProject\1033\InstallShield_pro.html If you were using the Beta version and did not see the InstallShield template, this is due to a bug that placed the InstallShield template directly under Other Project Types.
Another idea is the use of the WiX Toolset, but IMHO they provide you the ultimate PITA.
**Marco Bertschi
Yes, I did install the free version of Installshield when VS2012 first came out, but the free version had some teeth missing. I don't recall exactly what was wrong, but I do remember running into several issues trying to use it and not getting any assistance on their forums at all - zero, nada, nothing. So I dropped it. The full version is *very* expensive and I just cannot afford it. It costs more than VS2012 Pro - for a plug-in! :thumbsdown: I also did download the WiX set, but quite frankly lacked the crucial combination of <time> && <motivation> to kick its tires yet. It is difficult to get yourself motivated to do something if you already have a working work-around: Retaining VS2010 just to create MSI installers. Now, if we can somehow persuade somebody experienced with WiX to write a step-by-step walk-through on creating your first MSI as an article here on CP, I would kiss <his ugly> || <her beautiful> face! (And note I said face.)