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VCF - A Free BSD Competitor To Trolltech's Qt?

Posted by simoniker on from the atari-vcf dept.

TioHoltzman writes "There's a new 0-6-5 release available of the VCF, aka the Visual Component Framework. This release has a slew of new features, and it looks like it could become a real contender against Trolltech's Qt toolkit. It currently runs on Win32 platforms with an active Mac OS X port underway. There's still lots to do, but it can run some of the samples now on OS X. There are some screenshots here (1), here (2), and here (3)."

75 comments

  1. Frameworks arent platform specific by mnmn · · Score: -1

    QT is not Linux or Win32. Making something FreeBSD-secific isnt the way to go with GUI APIs. Take QT and wxWindows for example, they do the basic OSes very well... win32, X, OSX. Make something platform specific like Visual.NET and there goes the main benefit of having a portable API.

    QT is awesome. Its extremely simple, clean, and just works. It doesnt have the excessive clutter, nor the crazy syntax, nor does it require too many macros and environmental preparation to compile. Beating that would be really tough, but any API that can do that will rule. I'd like to see a free GUI framework, as clean and small as QT, that can become a standard on win32 too. That should bring far more apps to Linux and BSD, and make porting easy for software development houses.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    1. Re:Frameworks arent platform specific by jhunsake · · Score: 4, Informative

      Notice the space between "Free" and "BSD"? Notice that "To" is capitalized?

      Ok, then you should be smart enough to figure out that the title is really

      "VCF - A free BSD Competitor to Trolltech's Qt?"

    2. Re:Frameworks arent platform specific by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      QT is awesome. Its extremely simple, clean, and just works.

      I don't see how moc fits in your description -- are you mocking us?

    3. Re:Frameworks arent platform specific by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, fuckface, who said anything about FreeBSD?

    4. Re:Frameworks arent platform specific by winfx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I cannot understand how a free GUI, can become a standard on win32 when Windows next version are converting to Avalon (winfx) abandoning win32 and when is based on C++ RTTI (only C++ can take advantage of it) when Windows present and future is .NET and C#.

    5. Re:Frameworks arent platform specific by black+mariah · · Score: 1

      It's quite simple, really. The majority of Slashdot readers are delusional. Why else would they think any of this shit matters?

      --
      'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
    6. Re:Frameworks arent platform specific by aled · · Score: 2, Funny

      The majority of Slashdot readers are delusional.

      No, we are not!... my precious... aren't we?

      --

      "I think this line is mostly filler"
    7. Re:Frameworks arent platform specific by e8johan · · Score: 1

      Since the moc just works, Qt is extremely simple and clean.

  2. It's not that I'm against advertising... by david.given · · Score: 3, Insightful
    ...but if you're going to post an advertisement, say it's an advertisement! Tio Holtzmann is a direct spokesman for VCF; submitting a story as if it was written by a third party is dishonest and makes the whole editorial process at Slashdot look shabby.

    Well, shabbier.

    At least the submitter is a real user with a history, and wasn't created as a marketing ploy; but would it have been so hard to stick 'Disclaimer: I'm one of the developers!' at the bottom?

    1. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      But this is Free (as in Free Beer) advertising! ;-)

    2. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by TioHoltzman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have tried 3 different times to get this story submitted in one way or the other for the past several months (including one earlier today that got rejected within less than an hour!). They have all been rejected. Several other members of the project have also tried repeatedly to get a submission and those too got rejected. I don't like doing this anymore than you do but it seems that's what it takes to get a submission accepted.

    3. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by eraserewind · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I have tried 3 different times to get this story submitted in one way or the other for the past several months (including one earlier today that got rejected within less than an hour!). They have all been rejected. Several other members of the project have also tried repeatedly to get a submission and those too got rejected. I don't like doing this anymore than you do but it seems that's what it takes to get a submission accepted.
      But you know, this isn't Freshmeat. It's a discussion forum. Maybe the fact that is was rejected 3 times should tell you something.

      The point release notifications of famous apps like Mozilla are bad enough, but some library we haven't heard of before that does the same as a bunch of other libraries out there?

      If the news that Mozilla or OpenOffice or something like that was switching to VCF then it might be newsworthy.
    4. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by TioHoltzman · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, but when every single developer who runs into the project keeps asking why this is not getting more press and being written up on slashdot, maybe that says something to? I have been pushed continually for 3 years to get more press for the project, and slashdot is one of the few places I know of. Freshmeat woulnd't even carry it at first because it only ran on Win32.
      Cheers!

    5. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by Senjutsu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Perhaps, but when every single developer who runs into the project keeps asking why this is not getting more press and being written up on slashdot, maybe that says something to?

      It does. It says:

      Keep improving your project, and eventually it will get noticed, used, and become popular enough that some impartial third party will become excited enough to submit a story about something related to it (Ask Slashdot: Why isn't VCF more well known?, perhaps),

      On the other hand, what it doesn't say is:

      Submit a story to slashdot pretending you aren't the lead developer while the project is still in its early and butt ugly stages and has no compelling advantage over any of its competitors, thereby irritating and alienating the very audience that might otherwise have cared about it. You want to advertise your own project, submit it to Freshmeat again, FFS. It's not windows only anymore.

      If the only person who cares enough to submit something about your project is you, be up front about it. Don't try to con people into believing otherwise. This is hella lame.

    6. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You burned out farkers sicken me.

    7. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Knowing a bit about Tio Holtzman (the character, not the developer) would explain this. ;)

    8. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by EMN13 · · Score: 1

      This isn't news about a point release - I've never heard of VCF before this so to me this is actually new. And it's actually vaguely interesting - as in something to consider using as opposed to many other announcements on slashdot. Obviously a disclaimer would be nice, but it's interesting enough to warrant some attention, and for me therefore leniency :-).

      And - nobody's reading slashdot with the expectation of well-filtered news anyhow.

      --Eamon

    9. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by Arngautr · · Score: 0, Troll

      You people disgust me.

    10. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by asdfghjklqwertyuiop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't like doing this anymore than you do but it seems that's what it takes to get a submission accepted.


      When all else fails, just lie...
    11. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      What Linux desperately needs are toolkits! You cannot have too many toolkits. The lacking diversity of toolkits is the major reason that the Linux(TM) Desktop Experience sucks more than anything else.

      Every application should be in a different toolkit so it has a unique look and feel.

    12. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      this isn't Freshmeat. It's a discussion forum. Maybe the fact that is was rejected 3 times should tell you something.

      The fact that it was submitted several times over the past several months by many people, rejected all of those times, and then now accepted like this tells me only that the editorial process is broken.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    13. Re:It's not that I'm against advertising... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, that the editors give up too fast. They shouldn't give up after rejecting it 3 times, they should have kept rejecting it until you got the message.

  3. But will it continue to run on Win32 by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Past Tomorrow?

    I hope it's just me, and the amount of work I've been doing lately on this subject- but XP with SP2 on any AMD processor won't even allow the Windows CE VM to execute in debug mode. What chance does a third party language/compiler/debugger have?

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  4. Don't waste your time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    The screen shots are not worth being seen, don't worry if it gets slashdotted.

  5. Missing a couple things? by JabberWokky · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Stuff like the application scripting language, data abstraction, relational database libraries, accelerated 3d, etc. Qt is a bit more than just a visual toolkit at this point, having pulled into it and made platform independant many of the ideas implemented in KDE.

    --
    Evan

    --
    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    1. Re:Missing a couple things? by EvilIdler · · Score: 2, Informative

      wxWidgets has all those things Qt has, too.
      (wxwidgets.org)

  6. What am I missing? by I_Love_Pocky! · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why is this just a competitor to QT? Is there something specific about it that makes it directly competitive with QT? Isn't it a windowing framework, making it competitive with GTK and others as well?

    1. Re:What am I missing? by SewersOfRivendell · · Score: 3, Informative
      Why is this just a competitor to QT? Is there something specific about it that makes it directly competitive with QT? Isn't it a windowing framework, making it competitive with GTK and others as well?

      GTK and most others don't compile Mac OS X native apps, and GTK isn't written in C++. GTK 1.4 was ported for use with earlier versions of the GIMP, but no one's bothered to port a modern version, it would appear. Most frameworks don't bother with a Mac port. So Qt can currently use native (or pseudo-native, in the OS X case) controls on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and VCF would be a new competitor in that space. wxWindows probably already competes there, but the results I've seen from wxWindows apps have been pretty mixed, and the source code isn't pretty, being infested with win32 (pre-OO) notions of how event handling should work.

    2. Re:What am I missing? by JabberWokky · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Yes, but Qt isn't a GUI toolkit, it is an application development framework and language extension (Database abstraction, application scripting, Signals and Slots, the foreach loop, etc). All I see here is a GUI toolkit. GUI widgets and layout comprise only a small part of what Qt is.

      --
      Evan

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    3. Re:What am I missing? by stienman · · Score: 3, Informative
      Currently QT is really the only substantial cross platform framework that really does well on Windows as well as Linux/bsd/etc.

      However, QT is licensed such that Windows work cannot really be done for free. It may be open, but it certianly isn't free. This isn't a bad thing, but it is limiting.

      VCF is not only free and open, but it is licensed under the BSD license, meaning that it can (and likely will) gain a much larger audience than QT simply because it can do (or will do) everything QT does, but without cost. One can even modify the code without releasing their proprietary changes which is a big plus for many companies. One of the reasons, I suspect, Apple took from FreeBSD instead of Linux when they needed to Unix-ify their OS was because of the freedom it gave them. (probably also because BSD had already fought its legal battles and was known to be copyright safe)

      GTK and others really don't support windows and linux together as well as QT does.

      From the Features:
      The Visual Component Framework is a C++ application framework that offers a modern, clean, C++ architecture and is designed to be cross platform. The core framework is divided into three major libraries, the FoundationKit, the GraphicsKit, and the ApplicationKit. The FoundationKit provides basic services such as file access, streams, threads and synchronization primitives, and advanced RTTI features. The GraphicsKit provides a nice set of graphics classes for working with both image and vector graphics, and has built in support for the Anti-Grain Graphics library, as well as image loading services to facilitate loading various graphics formats. Finally, the ApplicationKit provides a rich set of GUI controls, use of the Model-View-Control pattern, property and component editors, undo/redo support, drag-and-drop, and clipboard services, application resources, and UI metrics and policy managers.

      To facilitate cross platform functionality the VCF is is built using a system of peer interfaces that abstract away the various platform specific calls, with each peer tackling a specific service, such as as threading, file handling, windowing system controls, and so forth. These peer classes are also exposed, and can be used to get access to the lower level OS handles or primitives that they wrap, allowing the developer to write platform specific code if the need arises.

      Finally, the VCF is flexible. While it is certainly designed to be a standalone application framework, it also aims, as much as possible, to cooperate with existing toolkits and/or frameworks. For example, if you have an MFC application, you can easily use just the GraphicsKit to make use of the more advanced features in it, as opposed to using the MFC CDC, CBrush, and CPen drawing classes.


      -Adam
    4. Re:What am I missing? by TioHoltzman · · Score: 5, Informative

      In addition to the GUI stuff the VCF provides:

      • Thread support with Mutexts, Conditions, and Semaphores
      • File and file searching
      • Streams
      • Locale and Unicode support
      • Text codes
      • String messages for localizing your app
      • Registry wrapper for app prefs
      • A full fledged reflection API that is conceptually similar to the Java Reflection API. This allows for dynamically creating an object instance from only a class name, interrogating the instance for methods, properties, events, and interfances. The overhead for this is pretty minimal. You do have to register the class but this is pretty easy to do and doesn't require a separate pre-processor step like Qt's MOC does.
      • A event system that is very similar to delegates in .NET and extremely easy to use.
      • Simple XML parsing support
      All of this is plus, unlike Qt or WxWidgets, or FOX or whatever, the framework is broken into smaller pieces as opposed to one monolithic library. All of the above features are available in the FoundationKit and completely suitable for console/server developement, without any GUI baggage.

      Application scripting can be achieved by using the VCF's Reflection API's to wrap a script engine. For example, in one app I wrote I used the Mozilla JavaScript engine and made a VCF wrapper that simply hooked into the VCF's ClassRegistry. Thus any class that you registered with the VCF's runtime was also available for scripting with the JavaScript engine. Took about 200 lines of code. From what I have seen I would expect a Python wrapper to be equally easy to write.

    5. Re:What am I missing? by e8johan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The product seems to be missing database support. That is pretty much a requirement to compete with Qt. Many, if not most, custom applications used in businesses today use databases in some way.

    6. Re:What am I missing? by JabberWokky · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Yep - it has all that, which is why I didn't list them in my features of Qt that this dosen't have. Basically, it has all the stuff that is necessary to implement a GUI, and nothing else.

      unlike Qt or WxWidgets, or FOX or whatever, the framework is broken into smaller pieces as opposed to one monolithic library

      Same goes for Qt; the framework is broken out. Some of the enterprise features are sold as options.

      All of the above features are available in the FoundationKit and completely suitable for console/server developement, without any GUI baggage.

      Ditto for Qt.

      As for your last point, Qt already has scripting built in with secure access as opposed to a wrapper for Reflection. You can use several languages as well.

      I'm not saying that this isn't good... I'm just saying that there's quite a bit more to Qt than what is available here and that Qt is quite a bit down the development curve.

      --
      Evan "but then, I'm a procedural kinda guy anyway..."

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    7. Re:What am I missing? by ndogg · · Score: 3, Informative

      Just to clear something up:
      So Qt can currently use native (or pseudo-native, in the OS X case)

      Pseudo-native? It is native. Emulating it would be too cumbersome.

      --
      // file: mice.h
      #include "frickin_lasers.h"
    8. Re:What am I missing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      All of this is plus, unlike Qt or WxWidgets, or FOX or whatever, the framework is broken into smaller pieces as opposed to one monolithic library. All of the above features are available in the FoundationKit and completely suitable for console/server developement, without any GUI baggage.

      this is just plain wrong, I've been using wxWidgets for a project I've been working on and it has many of those things and it is availible in many discreet modules, not simply a "monolithic library"

    9. Re:What am I missing? by EduardoFonseca · · Score: 1

      I don't agree with you. My company develops all our cross-platform applications (Linux, *BSDs, OS X and Windows) using wxWidgets and everything works fine.

      Far better than QT, if you ask me. No metacompilers, no emulated look and feel and (thank god) no licencing issues.

    10. Re:What am I missing? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Threading is not something you need for a GUI, though it does help. In particular threading is something that varies wildly between platforms, and as such desperately needs some compatibility layer to ease cross-platform development.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    11. Re:What am I missing? by stienman · · Score: 1

      It appears that wxWidgets has matured since I last looked at it. I don't know enough about them to point out differences, but it appears that they perform much of the same functionality.

      The license issue is interesting. Rather than go to a full BSD style license, they use a L-GPL with the exception that distributed binary dirivations can be distributed under the user's terms.

      -Adam

    12. Re:What am I missing? by TioHoltzman · · Score: 2, Informative

      To the best of my knowledge, Qt is the only other C++ framework out there that offers the range of runtime dynamic introspection that the VCF does. The VCF (and Qt as well) allows you to get all sorts of meta information about a particular C++ instance, such as the class name, class UUID, interfaces implemented by the instance, methods of the instance, properties, and events. Methods can be invoked dynamically at runtime, and properties can be queried or modified as well.

      By allowing for all of this the VCF gives you the potential to build a full fledged set of components on top of this, just like Borland's Delphi or Java (or Cocoa for that matter), with support for ComponentEditors and PropertyEditors. Because all of this can be queried at runtime, you can build a really kickass GUI builder, again just like Delphi or Cocoa's InterfaceBuilder. Qt can also support this (though they do it a bit differently I believe, but it's pretty close). WxWidgets, FOX, GTK, et al, don't have the features built in to really support anything like this. QTK has a sort of OO like property system but it's extremely hacky and cumbersome to use (IMHO). Qt and the VCF, make this easier because of C++.

      Whereas Qt requires a separate preprocessor step, the MOC tool, a developer using the VCF is able to supply this information all in regular C++ and through the usage of macros (icky, but hey, life's not perfect).

      Here's some more info on the reflection API's in the VCF:
      RTTI docs

    13. Re:What am I missing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Qt's license sucks... VCF is under a truly free license.

    14. Re:What am I missing? by downbad · · Score: 1
      The majority of Windows and Mac devlopers don't use GPLd libraries because of the baggage/obligations that come along with the GPL. GTK is GPLd, but VCF isn't, and if you buy a license from trolltech, neither is QT.

      Plus, the Windows & MacOS ports of GTK are hopeless hacks.

  7. garbage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Looks like shit.

    ...

    End of story.

    1. Re:garbage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think it's really a matter of looks, more an example of things that can be done? I looked at their full screenshots page and it contained some pretty good looking stuff, including some sort of game editor deal.

  8. Similar to Delphi? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    After looking at the sample code here:

    http://vcf.sourceforge.net/docs/ref_manual/ch02.ht ml

    I have to say it looks similar to Delphi.
    I don't mind. I think its cool.

    1. Re:Similar to Delphi? by japsu · · Score: 0

      Then you wouldn't hate Qt either. See eg. http://www.digitalfanatics.org/projects/qt_tutoria l/chapter06.html. Plus you get the fancy GUI Designer (which really works). On the negative side there's the GPL licensing (I consider the GPL too restrictive) and the size and compilation times of the Qt toolkit itself.

      --
      from foo import signature
    2. Re:Similar to Delphi? by atomic-penguin · · Score: 1

      QT uses the QPL not GPL. If you develop using the free version of QT it must be a free application, and only then is it GPL compatible. If you use the commercial version of QT it must be a commercial application, and is not GPL compatible. Note there is no free QT compiler and utilities for Windows. So free cross-platform developing is not possible with QT in and of itself.

      --
      /^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
  9. Uninformative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is about as "Informative" as "I can't correctly parse the title of the story".

  10. Wasn't this Borland's? by damm0 · · Score: 1

    Didn't the VCF originate from Borland and the Delphi/Builder RAD suite?

    1. Re:Wasn't this Borland's? by TioHoltzman · · Score: 1

      Nope this is 100% mine.
      You're thinking of the VCL (Visual Component Library).

  11. Isn't this just WxWindows all over again? by FFFish · · Score: 4, Informative

    And doesn't Wx have the lead by, oooh, must be about five years?

    Of course, the biggest flaw with Wx is that its lead developer doesn't have the cojones to submit a Slashdot story as if he were an impartial user...

    --

    --
    Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
    1. Re:Isn't this just WxWindows all over again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but WxWidgets uses a primitive pre-standard C++. This library looks like it uses the modern features.

  12. All hat and no cattle. by Trevor · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    When a UI toolkit has ugly screenshots, you know it has to be bad. Even the developers couldn't make it look slick! They should get their own house in order (and buy a book on interaction design) before they complain about someone else's application.

    1. Re:All hat and no cattle. by TioHoltzman · · Score: 2, Informative

      Maybe you'd prefer this:
      http://vcf.sourceforge.net/ssview.php?ss_id=28
      http://vcf.sourceforge.net/ssview.php?ss_id=26
      http://vcf.sourceforge.net/ssview.php?ss_id=27
      http://vcf.sourceforge.net/ssview.php?ss_id=30

    2. Re:All hat and no cattle. by jhunsake · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't listen to these assholes. If I still programmed in C++, I'd definately consider using VCF.

    3. Re:All hat and no cattle. by Trevor · · Score: 1

      Seriously take a look at what Avalon and Aqua provide and tell me that what you're demonstrating is even in the same ballpark in terms of encouraging good design and sophistication of graphics capabilities.

      Your fonts are chunky, you don't seem to have alpha blending, and your layout engine seems to ignore everything we've learned about 2.5D design in the last decade.

      WIll you get there? I don't know. Are you there now? Not even close.

      I am all for researching new toolkit approaches (really), but don't waste time trying to beat groups with many more resources than you by playing their game.

      Try a new game.

  13. Don't use VCF, its pico pico .5 fermi to MFC by growlydog · · Score: 1

    Think about that.

    --
    my sig was dubm so i took it out.
    1. Re:Don't use VCF, its pico pico .5 fermi to MFC by marcelloXYZ · · Score: 1

      I am first of all a user of VCF. It's ok to compare VCF to QT, but please don't say that. It really shows that you never used it and you don't know. The time you do something with VCF is at least 10 times less then what it takes to do the same with MFC. Unless you are doing completely standard things.

  14. XUL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    did I just dream XUL...

  15. Utterly useless without standard widgets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't see any standard widgets in the screenshots.

    No listbox? No command buttons? No radio buttons? No checkboxes? No comboboxes (dropdown lists)?

    ==No time for this.

    1. Re:Utterly useless without standard widgets by XemonerdX · · Score: 0

      While maybe not shown in any screenshot, they do seem to be available. From the Features page:
      A complete set of powerful GUI classes, including a common set of base classes enabling advanced custom control creation. Some of the control classes include tree controls, list controls, check box and radio controls, push buttons, single line and multi line text controls, and many others.

    2. Re:Utterly useless without standard widgets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course those widgets are available. How could anyone think otherwise?

  16. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is official. Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying

    One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

    FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save *BSD at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

    Fact: *BSD is dying

  17. Documentation by e8johan · · Score: 3, Informative

    I believe that one part of Qt's success is the great documentation. This: http://vcf.sourceforge.net/docs/ref_manual/ch03s04 .html does not look like great docs to me (the page has only titles, no text).

    1. Re:Documentation by XemonerdX · · Score: 0

      While I agree with you on the need for thorough & complete documentation, Trolltech is a company with people working for it full-time (and I guess a least 1 person that also updates the documentation on a regular basis). Doubtful the same can be said for VCF.

    2. Re:Documentation by Brandybuck · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So why the hell can't they document as they write the code? Have they not heard of Doxygen? Oh wait, Doxygen uses Qt, so they can't do that...

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    3. Re:Documentation by TioHoltzman · · Score: 1

      You mean like this:
      Doxygen generated source code documentation.
      You might consider spending 30 seconds perusing the website next time :)

    4. Re:Documentation by e8johan · · Score: 1

      I just browsed the docs that you refer to and they make me laugh. There wasn't much content in there, merely the method names and parameters, no additional text.

  18. Compulsory wxWidgets mention by BestNicksRTaken · · Score: 1

    wxWidgets is free [unlike Qt] on all platforms - UNIX, Windows, Mac, embedded, and uses native widgets.

    Oh and the screenshots look crap, if you're going to post screenshots, at least make sure there's some recognisable widgets in them, not just something that like it was drawn in Illustrator.

    --
    #include <sig.h>
    1. Re:Compulsory wxWidgets mention by TioHoltzman · · Score: 1

      Care to be a bit more specific *which* screenshots you have a problem with?
      For example:
      VCF Builder Screenshot
      What about that looks like "crap"?

    2. Re:Compulsory wxWidgets mention by be-fan · · Score: 1

      Why don't you try clicking the "Full Size Version" link? That's the scaling you're seeing.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  19. Competitor to Qt? by MemoryDragon · · Score: 1

    It runs currently Windows only, with a Mac port currently developed. Where is the other myriad of OSes Qt runs on? Sorry, the only thing this is a competitor to is the awful MFC. But it does not take a lot to be better than the MFC, since the MFC is the worst there is.

  20. Why not to join ? by marcelloXYZ · · Score: 1

    I am first of all a user of VCF, and the time I give as a developer to it, is only a fraction of the time I save by coding with VCF. VCF is an extremely power library and with an unlimited potential. Unfortunately most of the people stick with the same crap over and over again. So VCF has essentially been developed by only one person for few years. Even though recently there are more contributors. If just few more developer would join the effort you would see VCF growing in a much shorter time. In my opinion that was the meaning of the first post. I know the leader of VCF as a person working hard on something he believes. What matters is to have something good while optimizing the efforts. It doesn't make sense to do everything alone and make this library better and better until everybody likes it... alone. There are many programmers out there who can contribute and have fun to make VCF even better and quicly.

  21. Windows only? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

    I was thinking of trying this out, but I see it's currently Windows only. WTF? Ignore all the specious licensing arguments regarding Qt, if VCF can't run on my platform, then it really doesn't matter how free it is, does it?

    --
    Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    1. Re:Windows only? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure what your platform is, but the OSX version is running; it is just not yet at the level of the Win32 platform. If you like the Win32 platform features, and OSX is your platform, why not do a little developing yourself on it.

      As for the Linux port, I am not positive of the status, but it is underway also.

      I guess if you need a fully functional version for your platform that is not ready yet, and you are not willing to contribute, then you are correct, it is not for you!

    2. Re:Windows only? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      The story title is about a competitor to Qt. While it may be in the future, it certainly is not one now.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!