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IBM Picks Qtopia Over PalmOS And PocketPC
Bill Kendrick writes "ZDNet,
Geek.com and others are reporting IBM's decision to choose Trolltech's Qtopia (the embedded version of their Qt library, used by the Sharp Zaurus PDA) in their forthcoming devices.
See the announcement at Trolltech's website, and an
earlier press release at IBM.com." Here's an earlier post about the new IBM reference platform.
Qtopia is qt on embedded Linux. Same environment as Sharp's Zaraus. Good Stuff.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I am glad to see this since it should broaden the Qtopia user base significantly. You may or may not know that Qtopia is also used by the Sharp Zaurus Linux PDA (both the Sharp software and OpenZaurus distros use it). There is also the OPIE project, which is basically a suite of PDA apps built on top of Qtopia. This bodes well for getting more Liunx PDA users on board, and provides some existing apps for those using Qtopia for the first time.
But go on, just show us what you're up to and code something better. It will be adopted and enhanced if it's really good, the free software community is very good at joining well-thought projects.
Yep,
Just like OS/2....
--
The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
How did parent get modded to +5?
Yes, let's all move over to a windowing system with serious licensing issues that's designed from the ground up to be run on embedded devices. That sounds perfect.
And what is this "plan" to start phasing out X windows? Was there a meeting I missed? Last I checked X was still being heavily developed.
"I'm not saying we take drastic steps now, but we'd be stupid to take no steps to transition the desktop to QT all the way down."
This is ridiculous. We'd be stupid TO take steps to transition "the desktop" to Qt all the way down. You're the only one who wants this. Not everyone loves KDE, and even less people love Qt. The seperation of the windowing system and the actual desktop is what gives *nix users the configurability to give their desktops personality. If you want a one-size-fits-all desktop, get windows.
As for you're space shuttle comparison, X windows is not inherently big (at least is doesn't have to be). It's not old. As I said, it is still under development, and there have been recent releases. Having history doesn't make software old.
As far as I can see, you're the only one with your head in the sand. It sounds like you're regurgitating all the inaccurate FUD-based trolling that goes on any time an article related to X is posted.
Qt is in no way a replacement for X, and it never will be, in it's current form.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
It was Microsoft who wrestled the computer world from the headlock IBM had it in.
This is almost certainly a troll, but for those who might share the same misapprehension, it's worth pointing out that the above statement is completely false.
If there is a single cause of IBM's loss of control (and, actually, the company still is a monopoly in some spaces, though a relatively well-behaved one), it's the US Department of Justice. The consent decree IBM signed forced the company to stop bundling, which pretty much gutted the company's market strategy. If you want to add a second reason, it's the emergence of the personal computer, but the fact that IBM didn't retain control of that market is also largely attributable to the consent decree. At the time the IBM PC came out, IBM was deeply mired in red ink and floundering badly, which was a lot of the reason why IBM never put any real focus on the PC market and ended up giving it to Microsoft instead.
The reason that the DOJ hasn't had a similar effect on Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior, of course, is that Microsoft chose to ignore its consent decree and force the DOJ to make it stick in court, which has been so difficult, expensive and time-consuming that the US government has pretty much lost the will to press the charges home.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I don't see how IBM could have chosen Qtopia over PalmOS or PocketPC since those operating systems don't run on PowerPC hardware. Rather, it appears to me that IBM Microelectronics wants another market to sell PowerPC chips into and chose just about the only viable solution that wouldn't take years to deliver.
> Is there any programmers out there who have some real experience?
I have no experience of the embedded version of Qt, so keep in mind I'm talking about the X11/Windows library here.
In three words: it fucking rocks.
Qt is simply the single best designed piece of software I have -ever- seen. While it sets out for a huge task, being a completely self-sufficient C++ framework, a multiplatform one at that (and it can indeed easily replace the entire MFC), the class hierarchy is extremely clean, and it's very easy to get the hang of it. Actually, the entire documentation is absolutely excellent, clear and very well cross-referenced. I've never stayed stuck while looking for some info in there (quite unlike the MSDN documentation!). Go take a peek, someday.
One of the nice things with Qt is, if you need to do some basic task, Qt makes it trivial. Reading a file line by line is an example I was confronted to just today: using the MFC's idea of files, it's tedious at best -- gotta do the nitty gritty job manually. Wasted time. Using Qt, it's, well, trivial.
The other thing about Qt is, if you need to do something complex, Qt makes it very straightforward. For instance, yesterday, our VB programmer was trying to make a custom widget that lets you stack frames vertically, each under its own tab, and showing only one at a time. After hours of work, he got to work a simple version of it that couldn't resize, among other shortcomings. Well, it took me much less time to rapidly put together the same thing in Qt, only it worked right away without those shortcomings, could accept any kind of subwidget, and, oh, of course, could resize at will and would work right away on any platform. Keep in mind that this guy is very experienced with his tools, while I'm a relative beginner with Qt.
There are countless useful features in Qt. For instance, it doesn't duplicate data when duplication is not either required or specifically requested by the programmer. Copy a QString or a QPixmap ten times, and Qt will keep only one copy of the data in memory for all the instances. Modify one of the ten instances, and Qt will then replicate its data to modify it without touching the nine other instances.
And those guys actually license their boon of a tool under the GPL. That's almost too good to be true.
Anyway, enough rambling. If you're a programmer, do yourself a favor, and check out Qt. Even if you don't end up using it, you will likely learn quite a lot about how powerful object orientation can be when used by people who know what they are doing.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.