Slashdot Mirror

Just visit the screenshot pages of the major/new applications: Kontact (2, 3, 4), JuK, Kgpg, KAddressbook, KBruch, Kig, Kopete, KVim, KCacheGrind, Umbrello, KDevelop, Plasktik,

You don't say what language you are using, but I will assume C/C++ here...

no context-sensitive help

You use the context sensitive help in your IDE regularly? What for?

no organized documentation

man

intellisense

I have no idea what this is.

no autocompletion, and having to resort to home-brewed makefiles

There are IDEs for Linux that have autocompletion. You should check out Anjuta or KDevelop for GNOME and KDE respectively. Makefiles are a powerful tool, but it you don't want to bother to read the freely available docs, Anjuta and KDevelop will generate Makefiles (using automake) for you. You could even check out automake, autoconf and libtool yourself.

I've been trying to migrate people _away_ from windows, this only makes it easier for them to stay ;-)

On the other hand, Microsoft has done an excellent job trying to migrate developers away from Windows by creating Visual C++, the bastard son of C++. I have yet to find any features in VC++ that would make my job as a developer easier than in gcc. (Step-by-step execution built into the GUI? The few times I would actually need it, the debugger crashes before trapping anything. IDE? If you must, use KDevelop.)

Fortunately I've only had to work with this brilliant piece of software for short (a few months) assignments.

you would think, say, Visual Studio would be a whole lot better than it is

Seems good enough for KDevelop :-P

Apparently some people swear by kdevelop which, as you may be able to tell, is a KDE application. I haven't used it much personally, but you might want to check it out at http://www.kdevelop.org

Apparently some people swear by kdevelop which, as you may be able to tell, is a KDE application. I haven't used it much personally, but you might want to check it out at http://www.kdevelop.org

Most Slashdotters are probably aware of this, but KDevelop is a great IDE that ships with KDE and has IMHO phenomenal CVS integration. Just my $0.02 USD

I still don't see anything on the Linux development horizon that holds a candle to Visual Studio. I still get more good code written faster in VS than in any Linux IDE.

Have you tried KDevelop? I'm used to Visual Studio, and found the transition to KDevelop smooth. I especially like that it makes heavy use of automake and autoconf, that it supports CVS, and isn't designed specifically to make KDE applications. The user interface is very similar to that of Visual Studio.

There is also KDE Studio, which looks similar. I haven't tried this though.

If you have followed GNU/Linux for the last few years you know that GNOME has long been a stronghold of C, Perl and Python GUI programming. With Ximian's work on Mono, C# seems also to be a language that will see wide use in GNOME. Sun's involvement should also make Java applications integrate strongly with GNOME. But what about C++? Even in the GNU/Linux and Unix world this language has received many advocates and developers. I sat down with Murray Cumming, lead developer on the gtkmm and gnomemm C++ bindings for GTK+ and GNOME to get some information on the status of C++ development in GNOME.

Christian: What is your background and what puts food on your table in real life?

Murray: I'm a freelance developer, though that's difficult in the current market. I do C++ development on Unix, on all kinds of projects, such as protocol implementations, compilers, interpreters, data converters, management systems, and GUIs to make sense of all these. I've lived in Munich, Germany, for the past 3 years, but I'm officially a Brit. I love Munich's healthy outdoors lifestyle and easy-going socialising. I try to put the Lederhosen out of my mind.

Over the past ten years I worked my way up through paper-shuffling, data-entry, typography/design, tech-support, database consultancy, and Windows development. I didn't learn programming at a college, and I still stubbornly believe that it made me a better developer. You have to really care about something to teach yourself in your spare time.

I didn't use any Unix-like systems until Linux was widely available. People forget that before Linux you had to go to University to use Unix. Some companies had big Unix boxes, and the staff who used them generally earned huge sums because they knew how to move files around. Naturally they didn't let anyone else near them.

I've grown to love the control that Unix gives you but I've done hardcore GUI development on MacOS and Windows, so I know there's more to life. Unlike lots of GNOME developers, I know that the Mac is a worthy influence but that Windows gives us nothing to chase.

Christian: How did you get involved in developing gtkmm and gnomemm?

Murray: I was originally just a user, more attracted to the up-to-date gtkmm than the awkward (and then non-free) QT. I did the carthorse work necessary to get gnomemm 1.2 usable and stable, and that's how I learned about the general issues involved.

Then I decided to make a big effort to get gtkmm2 going, when it didn't look like anyone else was going to do it. Karl had the beginnings of gtkmm2, but it didn't build and he was reluctant to show it to the world, fearing that people would expect a certain amount of work from him. He didn't have time to do much more on it, but I did persuade him to put it on the gnome cvs. I worked on it gradually, sending progress reports to the list in case anyone was interested, and so that other people could learn too. After about 4 months I understood what it was doing, and it was able to run simple example code. As soon as I reached that stage lots of people started helping out.

Christian: What are the main design ideas of gtkmm and gnomemm?

Murray: We aim to provide the interface that a skilled C++ coder would expect, based on his experience of the language and the standard C++ Library. We try to use the standard language features wherever possible, just as any sensible C++ coder should. There would be nothing unusual about this if it weren't for bizarre C++ libraries such as QT and MFC. Is sanity really a design decision?

It's not really a design decision, but we are particularly proud that C++ allows us to simplify the underlying C interfaces. For instance, GtkTreeView has a great deal of flexibility, but gtkmm doesn't expect you to worry about that functionality unless you actually want to use it.

Christian: Okay, as you told me you made an effort to get gtkmm going, what where your aims when starting out with it?

Murray: I had 2 aims for gtkmm2:

1) Refactor it until both the interface and the implementation were ridiculously clear. I did not want any lingering doubt about the code just because people couldn't understand it. I believe that even a dull-witted person, with enough time, and enough notepaper, can make sense of anything. If he's not dull-witted then he'll make it easier for the next person.

2) Get more developers involved. This becomes easier after 1) when people can understand the code enough to improve it, but it's also necessary to:

• Present a clear vision so people know what's happening. To this end, I make a point of pre-announcing all major changes, discussing them, and announcing my interpretation of the consensus before proceeding. Everybody now understands that that's how we work, and that's why we've been successful. We only have to point to the list archives to justify our decisions in detail.
• Nurture people to get them started. We do this on the mailing list and in the #c++ IRC channel on irc.gimp.net.
• Let people know that their contributions are valued.

I know from commercial software development that money alone doesn't motivate people. In both proprietary and open-source projects, a team can only succeed if its members feel valued and involved in something worthwhile. That requires constant attention, but it pays off eventually.

Christian: That sounds good, so what is the current status of the C++ bindings for GNOME 2?

Murray: We are approaching API stability for gtkmm2, I think. Our code generator warns us about any functions that we've forgotten to wrap, and we are keeping track of API coverage manually too. We are spending most of our time now perfecting and simplifying the complex TreeView and TextView interfaces, and I see the end in sight there too. Lots of people are using gtkmm2 now and the response is overwhelmingly positive.

gnomemm 2 is progressing more slowly, mostly because it's more difficult for people to install all the latest GNOME 2 libraries. While it's still in development. Gnomemm 2 is much more integrated than gnomemm 1.2 - you can even download and install it as one tarball to get wrappers for libgnomeui, libglade, and gconf, among others.

I recently shared the gtkmm maintainership with Daniel Elstner because he's been doing so much good work on fundamental stuff. With two committed maintainers, and several regular developers, the future should be secure.

Also, we just announced support for the Forte C++ compiler that Sun will use for GNOME 2 on Solaris. And we are on the threshold of supporting Windows. Both of these platforms should be of great interest to commercial in-house developers.

Christian: Do looking ahead, what are the future directions of gtkmm and gnomemm?

Murray: For the future, we need to work on more Rapid Application Development stuff. The idea should be to add convenience without adding complication or straying from existing standards.

I'm working on some libglade additions that should make it easier to link custom code with separately-designed user interfaces. libglademm's syntax is already simpler and more helpful than libglade.

When GNOME's Anjuta2 is released, and when I can easily install KDevelop for KDE3, we need to add helper features for gtkmm.

We need to add things such as:

• Application-creation wizards so people can get started quickly.
• An "Add a signal handler for this widget to this class" feature
• An "Add a member variable for this Glade widget to this container class" feature.
• A widget creation wizard.
• A Bonobo control creation wizard.

• Add a class, deriving from this widget class.
• Add a method to this class.
• Override this method in this class.

Christian: OrbitCpp is being integrated to ship as part of the core ORBit2 package. What will this mean for C++ developers working on GNOME apps?

Murray: The Bonobo bindings are progressing well, but until ORBit2's C++ support is merged in, just after GNOME 2, we must supply bonobomm separately. I'm particularly proud of the Bonobo bindings - the lack of API clarity in Bonobo has long irritated me and this is an opportunity to show that it's not really that difficult. I've explained the issues in more detail elsewhere. C++ is the natural language for CORBA, which is inherently object-orientated - CORBA in C was always a freakish idea so it's no wonder that it's difficult.

So this means more people can use Bonobo. And the API clarity should mean that the Bonobo interfaces receive more scrutiny, because people will understand them well enough to criticize them.

We're really lucky that Michael Meeks decided to support our efforts by merging the C++ mapping into ORBit2 itself. It gives it a mainstream future.

Christian: The release of GNOME 2 is approaching fast now, how does the GNOME 2 platform look from the view of someone producing language bindings for the GNOME platform? Will there be any significant design changes introduced into the bindings due to the changed in the GNOME 2 platform?

Murray: Language bindings should now be much easier. The GTK+ and GNOME authors are more aware of the needs of language bindings and the various bindings are cooperating more, particularly with the .defs interface-definition files. For instance, we use James Henstridge's .defs generation scripts for pygtk.

The transition to GNOME 2 has allowed us to make previously forbidden interface changes to the underlying libraries. We developed gtkmm2 while GTK+ 2 was being developed. With gtkmm 1.2, we just complained about problems in GTK+ 1.2, but this time we fixed the problems in GTK+ as we found them.

gtkmm2 (for GNOME 2) is significantly different than gtkmm 1.2 (for GNOME 1.x). Some of these changes are due to changes in GTK+, but most are just lessons that we learned from gtkmm 1.2. GNOME 2 rationalizes its interfaces a lot by deprecating its more crufty stuff, and we make our interfaces even clearer by omitting those deprecated parts completely.

Christian: What are you favourite applications that has been developed using the gtkmm and gnomemm bindings?

Murray: I use Gabber every day as an instant messenger client - I love how it Just Works. I'm trying to persuade Julian to start the gnomemm2 port, even if I have to code it myself.

Cactus's Guikachu is also pretty impressive - it has made me want to do some Palm development.

There's a bunch of specialist apps out there, though not so many have been ported to gtkmm2 yet. I think that a lot of our users are doing in-house stuff. C++ is much more popular than C for that kind of thing.

I have high hopes for my own Glom app. It's meant to be a very easy-to-use database application that embodies my years of database design experience. But I've been too busy working on gtkmm2/gnomemm2 to port it properly. In the meantime, I released a small file utility, PrefixSuffix, which is a pretty good gtkmm2 example.

Christian: What are your thoughts on the future of the C++ language? Will it continue to be one of the major computer languages or is it set to be replaced by languages such as Java and C#?

Murray: In my opinion, Java and C# are much closer to interpreted languages in their design. By this I mean that much more is decided at runtime than at compile-time. I'm bored by discussions of executable speed, but I do feel that compile-time checking verifies designs and speeds development. Java and C# offer object-orientated improvements over scripting languages such as Perl and Visual Basic, but I see no competitor to C++'s feature set. I expect it to maintain its current high level of popularity.

Christian: About two years ago there was a lot of noise around gtkmm and gnomemm, with Havoc Pennington having started the Inti project, and with the leaving of Guillaume Laurent from gtkmm development, after which Guillaume was quite vocal in why he felt that gtkmm wasn't what thought is should be, in fact he called it a 'throw-away prototype' for a GTK+ C++ wrapper. Two years is a lot of time in the software world so I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the issues debated on back then, and how you see today's versions of gtkmm and gnomemm responding to any real issues raised back then.

Murray: I wasn't involved in those discussions, but I was annoyed at the schism. I like to think that I would have found an acceptable consensus. Most gtkmm users and developers strongly disagreed with Inti's design decisions so we carried on hoping that we would prevail. We did, and Inti didn't, and it's all history now. Inti died because it never involved a community of hackers, whereas I like to think that people preferred to work on gtkmm's design and felt more welcome in the gtkmm community.

RedHat's whole Inti framework never made much sense to people. Havoc is such a pragmatic developer that I still don't believe it was really his brainchild.

But Inti did create confusion among users, and even prompted one of the gtkmm maintainers to give up. My guess is that Guillaume never really got a handle on the gtkmm codebase and took the opportunity to jump clear of something that daunted him. When I was building gtkmm2 I sometimes felt the same but I chose instead to radically refactor it until it was manageable. I believe Guillaume felt certain anyway that, with RedHat's backing, Inti would succeed and gtkmm would fade away.

Guillaume uses QT now. He has stated that it was more important for him to have a full working toolkit than a perfect API. gtkmm2 will go stable soon - then we will have both in one toolkit.

Christian: What are the main differences of coding with gtkmm and gnomemm compared to coding with QT and KDE?

Murray: I addressed this in my GUADEC talk (1) and (2).

Basically, QT isn't developed publicly so it makes a number of mistakes without the benefit of any real criticism. Chief among these is its modification of the C++ language and the use of its own non-standard string class. It isn't necessary, as we've proved. These are just two ways that we've kept more up-to-date with the state-of-the-art in C++. It's then easier to use gtkmm in combination with other C++ APIs. I believe that you'll love gtkmm if you love C++, and that gtkmm is a better role-model if you're learning C++.

People sometimes complain about a lack of gtkmm documentation compared to QT, but that hasn't been true for a long time(*).

And perhaps most importantly, if you find a problem with gtkmm you can submit a patch or discuss it with the developers.

Christian: What is the advantage of using the bindings when creating GNOME and GTK+ applications in C++ compared to just accessing the C widgets?

Murray: Again, the GUADEC talk mentioned this (1) and (2).

gtkmm applications tends to be more organized than GTK+ programs. That's mostly because it's laughably easy for us to derive new widgets just to organise our code. In comparison, the structure of GTK+ code tends to be defined by the path that data happens to take through the code, rather than the layout of the source code itself.

Christian: What would you say to a developer who is trying to decide whether to write his application in C or whether to use gtkmm and gnomemm and C++?

Murray: I believe it's easier to develop software with C++, even if you're not very experienced, because the structure is there in the code, not just in your head. If you're as good as the GTK+/GNOME developers then maybe you can deal with the underlying C interfaces, but, in my experience, most coders want an easier life.

I'd recommend that people compare the C and C++ versions of the examples before deciding.

Christian: You made a presentation at GUADEC 3 this year. What is your impression of the GNOME community, is it becoming more language agnostic or is there still a strong favouring of C among the hackers you talked too?

Murray: I think people accept now that there will always be active language bindings for GNOME, and many of the core hackers now routinely use more than one programming language. There is still some general Unix-style dislike of C++, but interest has grown as people have seen that gtkmm is very much alive and useful.

Christian: For anyone wanting to learn how to create applications using gtkmm and gnomemm, where should they start looking? Are there any applications out there that you think a newbie would find a easy starting point to look at before starting creating their own applications?

Murray: Assuming that you're already a C++ coder, you should be able to get started easily by looking at the examples and the 'Programming with gtkmm' book. In fact, we have a particularly good documentation overview page with quick links into the manual and the reference documentation: http://www.gtkmm.org/gtkmm2/

We have converted all of the GTK+ examples and demos and added some of our own. I believe it's easier for a C++ coder to understand the gtkmm examples than it is for a C coder to understand the GTK+ examples.

I strongly suggest that you start with gtkmm2 rather than the stable gtkmm 1.2, because we have obliterated several confusing things.

People should also join the gtkmm-main mailing list and the #c++ channel on irc.gnome.org. We are a helpful bunch.

Christian: Okay, thanks for taking the time to talk with me Murray.

Murray: No problem, it was a pleasure.

--
Mind altering substance from Microsoft.

Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET from Microsoft
has arrived. Will the old way of programming
survive?Click to find out:
www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio
--

It seems that the Visual Studio banner ad [doubleclick.net] was not a single occurence, but rather part of a prolonged advertising campaign by Microsoft on the VA sites.

Hopefully, this means that VA are running short of cash, need every dollar they could possibly get their greedy hands on and their end is nearer than I would have ever hoped. Hopefully, this will also mean that $lashdot won't be around much longer and the pimply-faced slashbots will finally use some real software [microsoft.com] instead of that open sores crap [kdevelop.org].

P.S. I liked this part in MS' ad the most: "Will the old way of programming survive?". LOL.

Troll 28 of 131 from the annals of the Troll Library .

--
Mind altering substance from Microsoft.

Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET from Microsoft
has arrived. Will the old way of programming
survive?Click to find out:
www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio
--

It seems that the Visual Studio banner ad [doubleclick.net] was not a single occurence, but rather part of a prolonged advertising campaign by Microsoft on the VA sites.

Hopefully, this means that VA are running short of cash, need every dollar they could possibly get their greedy hands on and their end is nearer than I would have ever hoped. Hopefully, this will also mean that Slashdot won't be around much longer and the pimply-faced slashbots will finally use some real software [microsoft.com] instead of that open sores crap [kdevelop.org].

P.S. I liked this part in MS' ad the most: "Will the old way of programming survive?". LOL.

This troll was reposted from the Troll Library without permission of the original author. If you object to this post, or if you wish to add your troll to the Troll Library, please reply to this message.

Just three days ago, I subscribed to OSDN's (formerly known as Andover.net; a subsidiary of VA Software formerly known as VA Linux formerly known as VA Research) Freshmeat Update newsletter. However, I quickly found out that spending half a minute per day reading about new open sores warez is a waste of my valuable time; hence I decided to unsubscribe. Luckily, I was too lazy to do it yesterday or else I would have missed this wonderful ad that came with the newsletter this morning, instead of the usual ad for Thawte's SSL Guide:

--
Mind altering substance from Microsoft.

Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET from Microsoft
has arrived. Will the old way of programming
survive?Click to find out:
www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio
--

It seems that the Visual Studio banner ad was not a single occurence, but rather part of a prolonged advertising campaign by Microsoft on the VA sites.

Hopefully, this means that VA are running short of cash, need every dollar they could possibly get their greedy hands on and their end is nearer than I would have ever hoped. Hopefully, this will also mean that Slashdot won't be around much longer and the pimply-faced slashbots will finally use some real software instead of that open sores crap.

P.S. I liked this part in MS' ad the most: "Will the old way of programming survive?". LOL.

Just three days ago, I subscribed to OSDN's (formerly known as Andover.net; a subsidiary of VA Software formerly known as VA Linux formerly known as VA Research) Freshmeat Update newsletter. However, I quickly found out that spending half a minute per day reading about new open sores warez is a waste of my valuable time; hence I decided to unsubscribe. Luckily, I was too lazy to do it yesterday or else I would have missed this wonderful ad that came with the newsletter this morning, instead of the usual ad for Thawte's SSL Guide:

--
Mind altering substance from Microsoft.

Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET from Microsoft
has arrived. Will the old way of programming
survive?Click to find out:
www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio
--

It seems that the Visual Studio banner ad was not a single occurence, but rather part of a prolonged advertising campaign by Microsoft on the VA sites.

Hopefully, this means that VA are running short of cash, need every dollar they could possibly get their greedy hands on and their end is nearer than I would have ever hoped. Hopefully, this will also mean that Slashdot won't be around much longer and the pimply-faced slashbots will finally use some real software instead of that open sores crap.

P.S. I liked this part in MS' ad the most: "Will the old way of programming survive?". LOL.

Just three days ago, I subscribed to OSDN's (formerly known as Andover.net; a subsidiary of VA Software formerly known as VA Linux formerly known as VA Research) Freshmeat Update newsletter. However, I quickly found out that spending half a minute per day reading about new open sores warez is a waste of my valuable time; hence I decided to unsubscribe. Luckily, I was too lazy to do it yesterday or else I would have missed this wonderful ad that came with the newsletter this morning, instead of the usual ad for Thawte's SSL Guide:

--
Mind altering substance from Microsoft.

Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET from Microsoft
has arrived. Will the old way of programming
survive?Click to find out:
www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio
--

It seems that the Visual Studio banner ad was not a single occurence, but rather part of a prolonged advertising campaign by Microsoft on the VA sites.

Hopefully, this means that VA are running short of cash, need every dollar they could possibly get their greedy hands on and their end is nearer than I would have ever hoped. Hopefully, this will also mean that Slashdot won't be around much longer and the pimply-faced slashbots will finally use some real software instead of that open sores crap.

P.S. I liked this part in MS' ad the most: "Will the old way of programming survive?". LOL.

Just three days ago, I subscribed to OSDN's (formerly known as Andover.net; a subsidiary of VA Software formerly known as VA Linux formerly known as VA Research) Freshmeat Update newsletter. However, I quickly found out that spending half a minute per day reading about new open sores warez is a waste of my valuable time; hence I decided to unsubscribe. Luckily, I was too lazy to do it yesterday or else I would have missed this wonderful ad that came with the newsletter this morning, instead of the usual ad for Thawte's SSL Guide:

--
Mind altering substance from Microsoft.

Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET from Microsoft
has arrived. Will the old way of programming
survive?Click to find out:
www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio
--

It seems that the Visual Studio banner ad was not a single occurence, but rather part of a prolonged advertising campaign by Microsoft on the VA sites.

Hopefully, this means that VA are running short of cash, need every dollar they could possibly get their greedy hands on and their end is nearer than I would have ever hoped. Hopefully, this will also mean that Slashdot won't be around much longer and the pimply-faced slashbots will finally use some real software instead of that open sores crap.

P.S. I liked this part in MS' ad the most: "Will the old way of programming survive?". LOL.

intuitive and easy to use IDE; simplified GUI design and event handling; advanced error handling; advanced object oriented design including multiple inheritance, abstract classes, and garbage collection; full support for operator and function overloading; and portable (at compile-time) across various platforms. I have already looked at C++, Java, C++, C#, Eiffel, and even VB.net;

Let us take a look at how C++ compares.

Intuitive, easy-to-use UI, check. This is a stupid requirement for a language, though, as any reasonable language should allow your choice of UIs. I've used Visual Studio for C++ as well as emacs and, currently, KDevelop, which I like quite a lot.

Simplified GUI design and event handling. C++ does not determine how GUIs are handled but we use Qt which works very well for what we want. Visual Studio lets you do GUI design inside of it, as does Borland C++ Builder.

Advanced Error Handling. Define advanced. C++ gives you try-catch, etc. and provided you put a big of work into it, can be pretty good at error handling.

Advanced object oriented design including multiple inheritance, abstract classes, and garbage collection. Well, C++ is the language most people think of when someone says OO. That said, C++ does not have any built-in garbage collection which is in my opinion a shame. Still, you can plug in garbage collection if you want, though the URLs escape me. In my experience, this has slowed down the execution of my C++ applications considerably but that said, my applications tend to allocate and deallocate memory quite frequently.

Full support for operator and function overloading. Yes, C++ provides this.

Portable (at compile-time) across various platforms. Well, C++ is NOT, in my experience, as portable as Java is. That said, if you use a platform independent GUI library such as Qt and you are smart in how you code, you shouldn't have any great problems. Gnu Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool, published by New Riders, will help you out here.

So is C++ the language for you? That is impossible for me to say. The two major things it is missing is a GUI library (though Qt is excellent for this) and garbage collection (though this may not be a big issue). Personally, I find it easier to code in Java, mostly because Java does not allow things like multiple inheritence or operator overloading. Don't get me wrong, there is good reason to use these (and my C++ code occasionally does) but on the other hand, it can lead to much hassles. Very few projects really need multiple inheritence, for example, and MI can lead to all kinds of nasty problems. Do you really want to sink to the level of virtual inheritence, for example?

Really, though, we cannot help you out all that much more without knowing what kind of project you are working on. Your requirements seem to indicate this is not a small project. As a result, I'd advise against VB.Net, having spent a year working in VB on a project about a third of a million lines of code long. C# has potential (it is a blunted-scissors version of C++) but really isn't mature enough at the moment. Eiffel I have no experience with. Java is great in SOME circumstances but I'd hesitate to recommend it to you without more information. And then there's C++, which I have spoken about in great length here. But C++ is a tricky language to use correctly.

kdevelop
KDE Studio Gold
or just search through
apps.kde.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Ships Alpha of Third Generation of the Leading Linux Desktop for Developers

October 5, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KDE 3.0alpha1, the third generation of KDE's free, powerful and easy-to-use free Internet-enabled desktop for Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.0 is scheduled for its first beta release this December and for final release in late February 2001.

This inaugural release of the KDE 3, which follows two weeks after the stable release of KDE 2.2.1 series, is based on TrollTech's Qt 3.0.0beta6. It ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, and over 100 applications from the other base KDE packages (administration, multimedia, network, PIM, utilities, etc.).

The primary goal of the 3.0alpha1 release is to provide a framework for developers to start porting their KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 and to solicit developer feature contributions and feature requests before the KDE 3 API is frozen for binary compatibility. In addition, experimental KDE users who would like to try this release can set up a KDE 3 system side-by-site with a KDE 2 system. Instructions for doing so are available here.

Additional information about KDE 3 is available at the KDE website, including a tentative release plan, a KDE 3 info page, and a list of planned features.

For both developers and users, KDE 3 offers substantial improvements and additions compared to KDE 2 (the great bulk of which are, at this juncture, due to the switch to Qt 3):

For the developer:

For everyone:

Most of these improvements result directly from the switch to Qt 3, which has been the focus of KDE 3 code development so far. Improvements to the KDE libraries and applications themselves are planned for the successive beta releases leading to the first stable KDE 3. A list of these planned features is available here.

Since KDE 3 is mostly source compatible with KDE 2, porting applications from KDE 2 to KDE 3 can usually be done surprisingly quickly. The process is substantially easier than it was for porting from KDE 1 to KDE 2, and even very complicated applications can be ported in a matter of a few hours.

Instructions for porting KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 are available separately for the KDE libraries and the Qt libraries. Most of the changes required for the port applications pertain to changes in the Qt API. Although neither the KDE 3 nor the Qt 3 APIs are frozen, few changes are anticipated for the final releases of KDE 3.0 and Qt 3.0.0, respectively.

KDE and all its components (including KDevelop and KOffice) are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE ftp server and its mirrors and can also be obtained on CD-ROM.

Library Requirements. KDE 3.0alpha1 requires qt-3.0.0beta6, which is available in source code from Trolltech as qt-x11-3.0.0-beta6.tar.gz, as well as libxml2 >= 2.3.13, available here.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 will not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required. In addition, some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 (such as the multimedia backbone of KDE, aRts) will not compile with gcc 3.0 or 3.0.1, though the forthcoming gcc 3.0.2 release will most likely work.

Source Code. The complete source code for KDE 3.0alpha1 is available for free download at http://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alpha1 /src/ http://master.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alp ha1/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors.

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.0alpha1, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter problems, the compilation FAQ.

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide working over the Internet to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, an office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools, and an efficient and intuitive development environment, including an excellent IDE (KDevelop). KDE is working proof of the power of the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model to create first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the KDE FAQ, screenshots, KOffice information and developer information. Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's family of web sites.

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the KDE developers themselves, significant support for KDE development has been provided by MandrakeSoft and SuSE. Thanks!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE Ships Alpha of Third Generation of the Leading Linux Desktop for Developers

October 5, 2001 (The INTERNET). The KDE Project today announced the immediate release of KDE 3.0alpha1, the third generation of KDE's free, powerful and easy-to-use free Internet-enabled desktop for Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.0 is scheduled for its first beta release this December and for final release in late February 2001.

This inaugural release of the KDE 3, which follows two weeks after the stable release of KDE 2.2.1 series, is based on TrollTech's Qt 3.0.0beta6. It ships with the core KDE libraries, the core desktop environment, and over 100 applications from the other base KDE packages (administration, multimedia, network, PIM, utilities, etc.).

The primary goal of the 3.0alpha1 release is to provide a framework for developers to start porting their KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 and to solicit developer feature contributions and feature requests before the KDE 3 API is frozen for binary compatibility. In addition, experimental KDE users who would like to try this release can set up a KDE 3 system side-by-site with a KDE 2 system. Instructions for doing so are available here.

Additional information about KDE 3 is available at the KDE website, including a tentative release plan, a KDE 3 info page, and a list of planned features.

For both developers and users, KDE 3 offers substantial improvements and additions compared to KDE 2 (the great bulk of which are, at this juncture, due to the switch to Qt 3):

For the developer:

For everyone:

Most of these improvements result directly from the switch to Qt 3, which has been the focus of KDE 3 code development so far. Improvements to the KDE libraries and applications themselves are planned for the successive beta releases leading to the first stable KDE 3. A list of these planned features is available here.

Since KDE 3 is mostly source compatible with KDE 2, porting applications from KDE 2 to KDE 3 can usually be done surprisingly quickly. The process is substantially easier than it was for porting from KDE 1 to KDE 2, and even very complicated applications can be ported in a matter of a few hours.

Instructions for porting KDE 2 applications to KDE 3 are available separately for the KDE libraries and the Qt libraries. Most of the changes required for the port applications pertain to changes in the Qt API. Although neither the KDE 3 nor the Qt 3 APIs are frozen, few changes are anticipated for the final releases of KDE 3.0 and Qt 3.0.0, respectively.

KDE and all its components (including KDevelop and KOffice) are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE ftp server and its mirrors and can also be obtained on CD-ROM.

Library Requirements. KDE 3.0alpha1 requires qt-3.0.0beta6, which is available in source code from Trolltech as qt-x11-3.0.0-beta6.tar.gz, as well as libxml2 >= 2.3.13, available here.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 will not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required. In addition, some components of KDE 3.0alpha1 (such as the multimedia backbone of KDE, aRts) will not compile with gcc 3.0 or 3.0.1, though the forthcoming gcc 3.0.2 release will most likely work.

Source Code. The complete source code for KDE 3.0alpha1 is available for free download at http://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alpha1 /src/ http://master.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/kde-3.0-alp ha1/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors.

Further Information. For further instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.0alpha1, please consult the installation instructions and, if you should encounter problems, the compilation FAQ.

KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide working over the Internet to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, an office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools, and an efficient and intuitive development environment, including an excellent IDE (KDevelop). KDE is working proof of the power of the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model to create first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software.

Please visit the KDE family of web sites for the KDE FAQ, screenshots, KOffice information and developer information. Much more information about KDE is available from KDE's family of web sites.

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the KDE developers themselves, significant support for KDE development has been provided by MandrakeSoft and SuSE. Thanks!

On the commercial side, KDE Studio Gold from the Kompany looks to be even better, and they also have Blackadder for Python and Ruby development if you need that. And language legends Borland are in the process of bringing over most of their modern packages including Delphi (confusingly renamed Kylix), Java and C++. Right now, Kylix is available, with C++ Builder and JBuilder coming in the next few months. Again, as long as you stay away from OS specific API calls (that does for Linux and Windows), you can reuse all objects and source with a simple recompile aimed at either Windows or Linux.

--
Evan

here is some of my advice(do a google search ;-)(bellow are sane answers)

please try and use the gcc that fits you I recomend a dual gcc2.95 and a dev 3.1.xx or CVS version for intresting results (you will have to use redhats 2.96 if you plan to release to the 7.x as the ABI is differant but they plan 3.x for their 8.x release so it pays to be ahead of the game)

http://anjuta.sourceforge.net is a nice IDE that will help out visual studio freaks it has a GTK interface

http://www.kdevelop.org" is a KDE front end and is more mature and has a QT front end

but seriosly learn vi

this is because it is one of the more comman text editor and WHY because it is VERY good for seraching and writeing documents in plaintext (which I assume is what your C/C++/^*somethinglang%&^ is in)

I have to say writeing to standards helps so try it on solaris and BSD when codeing (three boxs as build machines is not a drain plus people can use these at the same time) all of these are free and run on x86 hardware http://www.sun.com
http://www.netbsd.org

Am I the only one who is ammused by the fact that people think that M$ wont go to linux ?
at the moment this is true but hey server side they have chillisoft doing ASP and the rest is comeing

oh and try out GDB (-;

regards

john jones

To answer the question, I may not be a developer, but I have heard good things about KDevelop.

Glimmer and KDevelop are both quite good.

• Qt Designer
• KDevelop
• KDE Studio
• PyQt/PyKDE (Python bindings for Qt/KDE)
• KBasic

Kdevelop
Don't even for a second try to act like we don't have a good IDE for Linux development. Try it. You'll like it. And don't give me any shtick about being open minded either. There is a great big difference between being educated, standing your ground and being closed minded. If you don't want to learn the difference, be prepared to be ignored.

Actually, KDE makes the best (IMHO) IDE for Linux and uses the excellent Qt RAD tool. HTML documentation is automatically generated from the source and integrated in KDevelop, along with Qt, system and other documentation.

Anyway, does the Mono plan even include an IDE? I don't see anything about that in the press release.

Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.

Ummm, I like Visual Studio a lot.

Thats great, but have you tried kdevelop. Many people I know who cannot just use gcc/gdb find it quite usable and preferable to vc++.

Sun open sources its software to make Microsoft look bad. Plain and simple.

Can you provide some proof of this or is this pure speculation?

I personally think Sun has good intentions, but sadly history has shown their lack of direction and poor business sense in recent years.

There's KIllustrator (photo-editing), Konqueror and Mozilla (web browsing, HTML editing etc), and again a good many others.

Oh, and anti-aliased fonts are very very nice, but that's just a bonus of a superior toolkit...

One word.

KDevelop

What free IDE does Gnome have?

(and yes, I know that you can make generic Gnome applications within KDevelop, and that you can probably run KDevelop on Gnome, if you have the KDE libraries loaded, but thats the point of Linux, that everything should be able to play together).

Good interview - short and to the point, easy to read in 10 minutes.

Anyway, here's my $0.10:
Andreas Pour has got a good point about the development tools for KDE versus those available for GNOME. Have you guys seen KDevelop? As someone who actually develops GNOME programs, i can tell you that KDevelop does look about 10 times better than GEdit - built in dialog construction tools (a la GLADE), a quick start (read: RAD) wizard, and more!

Shit, i'd kill for this tool in GNOME/GTK...

IDEs like KDevelop and KDE Studioare remarkably like Visual Studio. Whenever I've used both, they've always seemed (mostly) feature complete and stable. There are other IDEs out there, but from my expierence, these are the most mature ones out there. (and, imho, Emacs doesn't count as in IDE)

And now, I have a question for you (or anyone else out there): Are there any good books/materials for learning Win32 or Carbon/Coco/etc programming? I'm a pretty good programmer, but I don't want to be tied to Unix/POSIX forever ;-)
--------------------------

Mdevelop is more of a system built around existing apps. Imagine Glimmer + DDD + glade + a lisp interpreter all integrated. IMHO, linux lacks a really good IDE that can do everything you need..edit the code, debug it, and create an interface.

KDevelop has been this and more for a while now. It has the integrated debugger and interface creator (also tightly integrated with Qt Designer). It has all the standard stuff like code highlighting and formating aids. It doesn't, on the other hand, have a built in LISP interpretor, but I don't many people that use one anyway. Besides, anyone that wants to add one is free to do so.

I've even heard that KDevelop will make coffee for you, but I can't confirm that:)

Here's the URL: http://www.kdevelop.org

its a major version change (1.x -> 2.x) so api-changes are normal, even in other apps/libraries. the kde sourcebase is huge, so nobody could expect it to be compatible to the 1.x libs.

you can install the kde1-libs seperately to support kdevelop under KDE 2. if you dont want to, you have to wait for kdevelop 2.0. see kdevelop.org for details

I haven't used it, but it looks vaguely like Visual C++, it's free, and it's mainly a text editor and a GUI for the GNU compilers, debuggers, and utilities, so one can use it and then look at the files it creates more closely to see how the individual components work, one step at a time. KDevelop is here.

I have a friend who commented that application developemnt was more difficult and took longer in Linux than it did in Windows. Currently GNOME makes this much easier and KDE has a long way to go in bringing rapid-development technologies (in Windows: COM, DCOM, OLE, ActiveX) into their desktop. I think that if KDE is to be successful, it will need to come up with its own way of doing this.

(this may change when the KDE IDE is finished)
If you mean KDevelop, the 1.0 final was released in december last year.

For Example:

Open KDevelop
Create a C Terminal App
(Enter: nothing)

Then hit run.

Hey presto! It works. Wow. That looks real different to Unix programming, doesn't it?
Hey presto! It works. Wow. As you see its even more easy to get started.

Sounds like you're looking for kdevelop

Have you tried KDevelop?

It's not KDE specific, you can write any c/c++ app with it, and it does a lot of cool things like automatically documenting your classes and generating autoconf/automake for you. I like having the class browser as well. It also has a decent debugger as well, though I wish it was more like DDD (Data Display Debugger), which has the capability to graph data.

Interestingly enough, I hated VC++ 6. I prefer PFE + CygWin for Windows. Fortunately I haven't had to do Windows programming in years...

theKompany, which are the guys behind Visual Python, also supports the development of KDE Studio which is a C++ IDE that in many respects are more advanced than KDevelop. Have a look at some nifty screenshots here.

They also finance two developers working on KWord for two years. Great initiative.
--

Admitted, we don't have anything like MSDN yet - but that's changing... Stuff like developer.kde.org/ and developer.redhat.com isn't quite what it's supposed to be yet, but it's definitely getting there.

As for IDEs, maybe the proprietary ones suck - but did you check out KDevelop lately? While I personally still prefer the vi/make combination over any IDE, it should be easy enough for anyone to get started.

Have you tried KDevelop? It's a little basic still, but it organizes your files, does your makefiles for you, and color-codes your code. Its designed to work with gcc/g++. It also supports qt, so you have cross-platform support for GUI's. Runs under KDE or Gnome.

There are several choices for solaris. dtbuilder, which is very simple and featureless but free and already in CDE/solaris. Sun's forte development environment, which can be try-n-buyed for 30 days or bought for anywhere between 300 (edu price) and 3500 USD. Both Kdevelop and GLADE work under solaris. Teleuse is actually not sold by telesoft, but by a company called aonix.

Just choose one of those options and you will be fine. If I had a choice myself I would use either Kdevelop or forte. Kdevelop because it uses qt so it is entirely c++ (which seems to be a requirement for you) as well as the possibility of portability since qt runs on windows. Forte, because Sun makes it so it will have Sun support as well as having a significant performance advantage on sparc.

If you decide on motif as your windowing toolkit and use forte and you have oodles of money in your pocket. Consider adding XRT. Very many high quality widgets which can improve the look of just about any gui.

Yes, but C++Builder have code generator. Their reasonning is that, as you use code generated by their software (and maybe template also) and as you can use code from Borland (the "including any library and source code included for this purpose with the Software" things). Legally speaking, if you just use the text editor and compilator feature of CBuilder, and if you write your code without using parts of their libraries and example code, you are the copyright owner and do what you want with your code. But if you write code that wouldn't have been writed this way if you were using another IDE, then they own a portion of the copyright. Or at least, that what they say.

Shameless plug: KDevelop is a nice Unix IDE without such stupid restrictions. (I will lose Karma with rants like this).

I'd also like to encourage the Gnome hackers to seriously consider working on an IDE similar to KDevlop. That is simply an amazing piece of work. You have all the documentation and tools necessary to rapidly create KDE applications...and it's very easy to use and intuitive. I know that Gnome has Glade and gIDE and there has been talk of integrating the two, but somehow that doesn't seem like the answer. I think Glade should be integrated into an IDE, but gIDE is no KDevelop, no offense to the author(s). A very functional IDE that even new hackers could use, would go a long way to getting further involvment int the gnome project.
----

QT and GTK both lack good software for GUI building and prototyping. When you're trying out different looks for an application, it's REALLY annoying to have write code to have to specify the look'n'feel of an app when it makes much more sense to use your visual intuition to 'draw' the interface.

Qt and GTK+ may lack them, but the environments built atop them may have them; does Glade, for GNOME (and, it indicates, raw GTK+), or Kdevelop, for KDE, provide enough of that sort of functionality for you? (Kdevelop has a dialog editor, at least, and Glade also appears to have a way of visually constructing the GUI.)

"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

I'm going to go with KDevelop on this. I'm predicting KOffice in 2001...

Dude, SourceSafe's interface is slick. In Windows I settle for WinCVS when I'm working on my own projects. WinCVS is pretty creaky, but it's very satisfying to be able to instantly see which files I've changed (icons!), click on them and commit the changes. Maybe GUIs aren't your thing, but I appreciate never having to memorize or look up command-line arguments. BTW, the jCVS interface looks good and KDevelop has some kind of CVS support.

Hey, it's great that SGI is releasing this sort of thing, but they did it weeks ago, and Jessie has already been announced on half a dozen different sites. So far, it's just a front-end to gdb and gprof, and many of those (DDD, KDbg, etc) exist already. If they're right about its being a real framework for a serious IDE (class browser, syntax highlighting, makefile management), then I'll be interested. Anybody working in C/C++ should check out KDevelop, the best IDE for Unix I've seen yet. --JRZ

The closest things that are available are Code Crusader and KDevelop.



There's several other options out there, but they're not as nice as these two, IMNSHO...



Both offer project management, class browsing C++, syntax highlighting, etc. KDevelop looks nearly like VisualC++, Code Crusader is more closely modeled after Code Warrior. These decisions dictate code choices.



KDevelop does class browsing in a way much like VisualC++ does. Code Crusader shows classes in a class inheritance tree.



Each of these environments have their own set of problems- you'll need to evaluate their offered functionalities and find out the drawbacks for your purposes and choose accordingly.