GTK-- vs. QT

spirality asks: "The company I work for is getting ready to decide on a GUI Toolkit for our Computational Modeling Toolkit (CoMeT, www.cometsolutions.com). We would like C++ compatibility and ports to various Unices and Win32 platforms. Not supprisingly we've come up with two choices, GTK-- and QT. I've attempted to compare the two by doing alot of web surfing and searching, but I've come up with things that are consistently one or more years old. So, the question I pose is what are the (dis)advatages of GTK-- and QT, and why would I choose one of these toolkits over the other? Overall functionality, momentum for future growth, ease of use, licensing, and pretty much anything else is relevant to our decision." With QT now at version 3.0 and GTK now in the 1.2.x revisions, maybe it's time to give the two libraries some fair comparison and discuss the new features, advantages, and disadvantages of each?

Comments

First post?

[Grab]

Is this my first first post? ;-)

Seriously, I'm interested in this myself - I'm working on a universal chip programmer and I need a toolkit to do this. I'd rather not use VC! :-)

Grab.

Re:Mozilla (slightly OT too)

[be-fan]

Great. We'll have more slow, bloated apps that don't look native. No compilation step? Who CARES! You only compile it once! You're users have to deal with your shit mistakes every time they use the damn program!

How about FLTK?

[printman]

Haven't seen anyone mention FLTK, but it is a cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit. It is a lot smaller than Qt or GTK+/--, and it used by a lot of the embedded Linux projects to provide their GUIs. OSX support is currently under development...

The FLTK web site is http://www.fltk.org/.

Re:licensing Qt == dangerous

[mughi]

One problem with Qt is that if any free version touches your project at any time, then you can never purchase a license and release your project commercially.

That contamination is one aspect to watch out for. Start commercial, or stay free. You just can never change your mind

Who modded this as troll?

[Wavicle]

You know this is just one kind of crap that is really killing slashdot. There is nothing trollish about this post. If someone's opinions differ from yours, that doesn't make them a troll. If someone's experiences don't favor your favorite toolkit, that doesn't make them a troll. Read the moderator guidelines or, if you can't, go into your user preferences and remove yourself from moderator participation.

Re:Some REAL points

[GiMP]

> See above. Kdevelop also makes it easy to set up
> automake/autoconf build methods, even for people
> who aren't familiar with them.

Those people have no business doing software development.

I also reckon that you believe WYSIWYG "html editors" have a place? Maybe for my 10 year old female cousin, but not for anyone else. Yet again, they shouldn't play the game if they are afraid of the ball.

SQL is a backend issue, there are no reasons for it to be tied into a toolkit.. if so, it is the worst form of bloat.

The other major issue with QT is the terrible licensing. It still sucks, and I doubt it will ever not suck. I would never base my software on something that will make it as valuable as a pile of rubbish one day.
Oh, and btw.. Not everyone wants to write in C++. And true, not everyone wants to write in C.. but Gtk is the most portable option overall. Sure, QT has ports.. but they aren't free. Gtk runs on many platforms and can be freely extended to others..

Ok, so the Windows port of GTK is buggy.. so you develop an application for it, you make some fixes.. and you compile it statically and use a Windows-like theme.

IDE.. hah, I'd like to see you use Kdevelop on a text terminal. Have a nickle, get yourself a real computer.

Re:Some _REAL_ points

[GiMP]

Yes, vim is just a text editor. Which is exactly my point. You have an application for each function you need to do, and thats it. No bloat, no mess.

Why would I want an app to do my Automake/Autoconf stuff? So I can spend days debugging it? So I don't learn anything and become dependant clicking a mouse? Its so easy to click those buttons in Kdevelop when I'm ssh'ing to my application server.

I must admit that I've never used Gtk--, as I don't write code in C++. I have written code with Gtk+ and Gtk-perl, and I found it quite easy and enjoyable.

Re:Some REAL babble (was Re:Some REAL points)

[GiMP]

A text environment is not a restriction, it is directly oppossite of such. It is the only environment capable of being productive.

Sure, I can't play quake on a piece of paper.. although I can play it on a terminal.. However, that is not the point. Quake is a game..
KDevelop is an IDE.

When you are doing development which doesn't require more then a text editor, why limit yourself to learning a GUI environment? That will be really helpful when ssh'ing to your box or X windows crashes.

And yes, I assumed that QT is a GUI toolkit because anything more would be terrible bloat. It shouldn't become a library for providing everything.

I laugh when I hear people who think that pointing and clicking is faster then Vi commands and the power of the shell.