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Trolltech Spills Beans On Qt 3.0
Gord.ca writes: "Linuxprogramming has
a
preview of Qt 3.0. New goodies include database integration,
multiple monitor, 64-bit support, their own component model an improved Qt Designer & international text display. Doesn't seem to be any reference to 3.0 on the Trolltech website, nor guestimates of release date." Update: 04/09 11:18 PM by T : Here's something on the Trolltech site about the new release -- sounds nice.
One is called "Qt Free Edition", and it is dual-licensed under the GPL and a home-brew, Open Source compatible license dubbed QPL. It allows developers to use Qt in Open Source and Free projects, like KDE or, well, just about anything on Freshmeat starting with "K".
The other versions are called "Professional" and "Enterprise". They carry a per-developer royalty-free commercial license.
In short, once you go beyond Qt Free Edition on Linux or BSD, the licensing becomes a nightmare.
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
licq has several frontends, including a Gnome and a QT frontend. All the umpteen Gnome libraries, GDK, GTK and Glib loaded by the Gnome frontend take up less memory than just QT alone. Duplication of already existing database and HTTP libraries in QT doesn't help the time and thrashing it already takes to load any QT program.
First off, a minor question: Other than starting from scratch or porting, how else would you write a program?
As for the "lack" of KDE apps: if you're judging by Freshmeat, I'd agree. But (unfortunantly, IMHO), many many KDE apps aren't listed on Freshmeat. KDE has its own applications site, Apps dot KDE located at http://apps.kde.com/.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Ironic that you should use aRts as an example - it was not intended for KDE, and was choosen for use in KDE2 because it was a good, standalone, desktop neutral sound server.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
It's pretty much a matter of taste. Konqueror, KMail, Konsole, Kit and noatun are my primary applications. I'm thinking about switching to Aethera, which is in second Beta, and very stable and complete. Knapster stinks, but then, I use lopster, which is fantastic. And as for xmms, you do know that noatun uses the same skins, right? Along with K-Jofol skins (the Windows mp3 player), GQMpeg skins, and obviously winamp skins. noatun is now the standard song player for KDE (supports plugin for many formats), and before that, kaiman supported skins as well. Nowadaya, you can't identify a mp3 player in a screenshot.
My point is, I use KDE because I like the apps. You don't, so don't use KDE. Presto! We're both happy. As the great four letters say: YMMV.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Multi-monitor support is in X. Applications need some way to actually use it, though.
What they announced was that support.
These "bloat" posts really bug me. What is so wrong with adding another library that seamlessly integrates with the existing libraries? Isn't that how software development works?
well,
can you perhaps shed some light on this: is there a major philosofical difference between KDE and Gnome that transcends implementational details (like vi's command mode and edit mode duality vs emacs's lisp programmability) or are there mainly surface differences (like pico's keybindings vs jove's)?
eh.
Why does KDE care whether QT is GPLed or not? GPLled software can't be USED by closed software, but it fully able to USE closed software (presuming that QTs licence allows this).
or am I confused again?
This is not meant to be flame-bait
Neither is this post, but these too are honest questions:
Why should I choose Vi over Emacs? I mean, more people use Emacs.
Why should I use MySQL over SQL server?
Why should I use Linux over Windows2K? I mean, clearly more companies support windows.
My point: you know damn well when your posts are flame-bait, especially when the reason you give for something is "more people do it than the other", so dont bother saying they are not.
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Duplication of already existing database and HTTP libraries in QT doesn't help the time and thrashing it already takes to load any QT program.
.8 more seconds of start up time for the power of a rich, clean, well-designed, well-documented, object-oriented, portable Qt anyday.)
:P
I think it's nice that if my GUI will work on a machine, then I can also be sure that I can do HTTP or DB or everything else non-GUI related in Qt. It's all on the same library, so instead of requiring 8 different libraries for your app, you require 1.
As for the memory requirements, C++, in my experience, is slower/bigger than C, no doubt there. But that has not stopped pretty much EVERY commercial application (I forgot the actual numbers) from using it, because it just lends itself better to good design principles. (I think you're exaggerating anyway, but I'll trade
Awe damn, now look what I've done. I've responded to a toolkit troll with a language troll! Be gentle on me....
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python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Why the heck should I choose KDE
...
KWord, KLyx, KDevelop,
These are all quite useful (to me!) KDE apps. Otherwise, I like the look of gnome better so that's what I use (that is, the gnome panel and sawfish). I know many people who like the KDE panel/wm better and that's fine. I'm not the first one to say that, but you don't have to choose between gnome and KDE and I don't understand why so many people want to make it look that way. Just use whatever you like from both and everyone will be happy, and there will be no war in the world and humanity will be happy, and..... OK, I'll stop!
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
This way, Trolltech keeps making money off of it, but KDE can be used happily by all.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
"soulless and teutonic" whoo-boy! anywaaaay
Pretend the QT 3.0 was possible fud. (no release date whatsoever given, from a commercial company?) Who would they be fud-ding against? Just curious...
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
[o]_O
Yes, but I was talking about GTK. The GIMP Toolkit, which I think was started in the US.
Monkey sense
And about that trying to KILL KDE, GNOME would have never existed if KDE didn't make the license mistake, don't take it personal.
I agree, even though one could argue that KDE was started in Germany and GTK in the US. Though people arguing that are very short-sighted IMHO. AFAIK GTK for Windows doesn't integrate well with the rest of the system. That is because it wasn't designed to look like other toolkits. Yes, KDE is far more mature than GNOME but GNOME has much more supporters these days so I don't think that the market share will last. Not that it matters in the end, thanks to X we have a choiceMonkey sense
Now, what does it mean to be soulless AND teutonic? I am just dying to know.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Damn man, 17 mods? Is that a record?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
So we have a component library that is wanting to become a complete RAD tool. Well good for QT, interesting thing is, everyone of those features have been in Delphi, and Delphi has been around for 5 years. For Linux, we now have Kylix. Creating your own components, database access, and localization is exactly what made Delphi great. Kylix ueses QT so makes ya wonder if Kylix is the reason why they are doing these features. I say that becuase its one thing to make a component library, its something completly differnt to make a full RAD tool. Why the change for QT? If they do these features, I sure hope they do them right.
Are available on their FTP site. Enjoy!
Many innovations found in GNOME are direct attempts to "ape" Microsoft, from compound documents to an implementation of Visual Basic for GNOME. Not that this is (all) bad; MS came up with some pretty good software design strategies, and GNOME is smart to follow the good ones.
That having been said, I use both KDE (on my home desktop) and GNOME (at work). They're basically the same as far as I can tell, from a UI point of view. There's a couple of minor differences (it's easier to use workspaces in GNOME; it's easier to set fonts in KDE; I like Konsole better; I like GTK's look-and-feel better), but they basically do the same things as each other, and both better than Windows. Which I think is the point.
GNOME is no longer designed specifically for Linux, as GNOME now must be working on Solaris and FreeBSD before it can be released.
Not bloody likely. In fact, one could argue that using a cross-platform environment such as Qt or wxWindows is closer to the hacker ethic of "solve the problem once." In fact, part of Python's success as a GUI building language is wxPython. I've also heard of cases where Qt/Python is used to build GUIs for software that's meant to run on Windows and UNIX, although that involves some expense...Qt is NOT GPL'd for Windows!!
OK, that's my two cents.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
I'm guessing you don't program. C++ lends itself to incoherent parameter-passing, inscrutable overloading, downright insane side-effects of innocuous looking declarations and the kind of debugability that one has come to expect of biological systems.
I have a great deal of respect for what C++ tried to do with C, but let's face it: good design principles are not what C++ lends itself to. What C++ has going for it is that it's the first language that a lot of people learned OO concepts in. Certainly, all of those concepts can be applied in other languages (e.g. Gtk+ in C), and OO has been done better elsewhere (e.g. Java, Smalltalk, Python, etc), but that's not why people use C++. They use C++ because they feel they need speed and a language that the average joe will know how to "do OO stuff" in.
I'll trade
Ignore the startup time. How much slower will your desktop be overall? Will people with last month's machine be able to run it cleanly? How embeddable is it?
- rich Every feature that I know of in Qt is supported in other widget sets
- clean Large widget sets are cleanly coded (e.g. Gtk+) or they die (e.g. Motif). It's very hard to maintain a poorly coded widget set.
- well-designed What widget set do you feel is poorly designed and has traded memory requirements for it other than Motif, which is a poorly designed pig, I'll grant.
- well-documented None of the widget sets that I know of trade memory for documentation. I think this one's a bit of a straw-man.
- object-oriented I've never seen a non-OO widget set for X or Widnows. Which ones were you thinking of?
- portable This is the one that gets me. Qt is written in C++, and thus suffers from C++'s portability problems (which is exactly why Sun was unable to choose Qt for Solaris) from the onset. It can never be as portable as something written in C (e.g. Gtk+).
All things considered, I don't think any of your points are sufficient to warrent the extra memory requirements....Awe damn, now look what I've done. I've responded to a toolkit troll with a language troll!
If you intended this as a troll, I guess you succeded, but you certainly did not succeed in laying out a case for Qt or C++. Both are deeply flawed, and those flaws are not sufficiently offset by either's merits.
Sun, HP et al joined with the gnome foundation prior to Qt being released fully GPL. To go with KDE would mean licensing issues, and fees paid to Trolltech for every copy of their OS shipped.
Since that time, I have heard MANY people saying that Qt is fully GPL. If this means that it can be used for free in a commercial product, Sun, HP, et al may have more decisions to make.
More importantly, though, is the fact that KDE, as well as Gnome, and many 'Linux' desktops are not exclusively Linux at all.
My Sun machines, other than pure servers, all run KDE. So do my Linux boxes. I know people who do the same with Gnome. And Windowmaker.
The point here is that it's all about choice. I have the choice to use KDE, you have the choice to use Gnome, and others have the choice to use whatever they want. Ideas, innovations, etc from one desktop quickly migrated to others, and in the end, we will hopefully have many mature, stable desktops, which can be quickly and easily exchanged, based on a persons tastes, needs, etc.
There are those who will use whatever comes installed on their machines, and never tinker. But I for one am glad that I can replace bits and pieces, until I get my machine to my liking.
So why use KDE? For the same reason that many people put Linux on in the first place. If you like what you have, stick with it. Many people didn't like the Windows that came with their computers, and installed something else. If you like Gnome, stick with it. If you find yourself not liking it, or wondering if something else just may be more to your liking, try KDE, or Windowmaker, or whatever.
Yes, we all know that the Linux community is entirely made up of "average" users. Sheesh.
Databases on Linux? Nah.
Multi-monitor Linux boxes? Nah.
64 bit Linux platforms? Nah.
Non-english speaking Linux users? Nah.
Looks like we don't need Qt3, then.
"Good people drink good beer"
From the perspective of a KDE developer (the primary users of QT fwik), I really have to wonder how much of this stuff is desirable:
"Database Programming: Qt 3.0 will include a platform- and database-independent API for accessing SQL databases": KDE already has put significant resources towards a uniform Database model, as has the GNOME project and even specific languages (DBI for perl, f.e.). Why do we need or want, yet another splinter in the market?
"Qt Designer: Qt Designer has now evolved from a dialog editor to a true GUI builder.": Okay, so they seem to have cloned some of the capabilities of KDevelop and others. My question is WHY? So they can sell it to windows users?
"Qt Assistant: Qt 3.0 features a separate application called Qt Assistant, which can be used to browse the Qt Class Documentation, as well as the Qt Designer and the Qt Linguist manuals. Qt Assistant offers index search, contents overview, bookmarks, history and search in pages. ": Again, KDevelop seems to have most if not all of this capability...
"International Text Display": Hrm... pango in a box.
"HTTP network protocol support": Proving the QT is not just a gui toolkit, they implement protocol support. What the heck for? Isn't this better implemented in the 'framework' kind of level as KDE has done? Konq obviously supports this, as does the protocol facilities in general...
"New Component model: Qt 3.0 will provide a platform-independent API for runtime loading of shared libraries and accessing of their functionality using a COM-like interface concept": WHY does QT want to develop their OWN object model? Isn't enough enough? Do they really have value add here? XPCOM is MUCH more portable than they could ever support QT with. Why would they want to add this?
Being a naive user, I have to wonder how much of this is actually useful for free software development. We seem to already have superior solutions for much of what they are providing. Some things (that I have not listed) will definately be nice (64bit portability, better unicode/localization, multiscreening, etc...) and actually seemed to be related to the core of QT: the graphics toolkit.
It seems to me that they are basically trying to reinvent what the freesoftware community has already developed in order to sell it to those less worthy (ie win32/commercial developers). Am I missing something here, or is there a reason a GUI toolkit should have its own incompatible object model?
-Chris
From Linuxprogramming.com's QT 3.0 Preview story:
Wow! Now I can put a Linux GUI in my car!
MacOS, Windows, BeOS, GNOME, KDE: they're all just Xerox copies
"Everybody's doing it" never struck me as an important reason to do anything :-)
I, on the other hand, haven't used Gnome recently. My impression of the differences from an end-user perspective (note:based entirely on hearsay, posts on Slashdot, voices in my head, and other incredibly reliable sources!) is that KDE has a more "tightly 'integrated'" feel than Gnome does (this may or may not be a good thing, depending on your tastes). Gnome, on the other hand (aside from Antialiased fonts), has a reputation for being better with the eye-candy. I also get the impression(again, just an impression) that Galeon isn't yet as "polished" as Konqueror is [this may or may not still be true).
Yet another possibly unfounded impression - I get the feeling that KDE development is moving faster than Gnome development at the moment, though I gather that Gnome development is still clicking along quite well.
In the end, honestly, I think it's as much a "look and feel" thing as anything else, unless you intend to contribute to the development, in which case if you're in the "Ewww! C++ Sucks!" category, you go with Gnome. :-)
In short - I'd say pull down the KDE 2.1.1 packages for your favorite distribution and try it out. I recommend using it just long enough to get over the traditional "this sucks because it's not what I'm used to" phase...then decide. You may very well decide that you still prefer Gnome, in which case, no big loss. You may also decide that you like KDE better. Also no big loss. You may not be able to decide, and find yourself switching back and forth regularly. That'll cost you a little extra time and effort due to possible addiction to bleeding-edge updates from 2 large projects instead of one, but still fun...
The more people that try both, the more "interoperability" improvements between the two will be suggested and implimented...
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"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I for one am sick of hearing about people saying that this is better than that or that is better than this. It's been going on for too long. Emacs vs. Vi, Linux vs. BSD, KDE vs. GNOME, Sony vs. Nintendo, whatever....
If you like KDE, use it. If you like GNOME, use it. If you like pizza, eat it.
I don't think it matters if KDE is better than GNOME or vise versa. I think what matters is that people have the option to choose what they like best. One of the many reasons I feel uncomfortable when I use windows, mac or beos. I'm not even going to say what I use as my desktop because it's irrelevant (and no it's not GNOME :O).
Just my $0.02
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Garett