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Qt 4 Beta 1 Available for Download
scc writes "Get it here. Trolltech's press release gives the details, including the projected release date: late first quarter 2005. Qt is the cross-platform GUI framework at the heart of KDE. At the same time, Trolltech released under the GPL Qtopia 2.1, an implementation of their GUI framework for Linux-based PDAs."
I think Qt is great, I use it for most of my projects, the only annoying thing is that the Windows version isn't free. There are free Linux and Mac versions released under the GPL, but no Windows version. \
The whole point of Qt is to make it easier to have software run on multiple OS's, but I can't test any of my stuff on Windows. Oh well, still kick ass software.
I'm especially happy about Arthur and the new Qt Designer, we will finally have an accelerated OpenGL? desxtop and all will be smooth due to double buffering.
My only gripe is that the performance is still not great, but that should be expected with debugging code and all.
Trolltech is doing great work.
So basically your saying that they shouldn't be allowed to make money off Qt, but you should be allowed to make money off your software that uses it? Nice.
Does the improvements to Qt include totally ignoring backwards compatability, forcing every application developer to re-write large portions of their code for the fourth time just to keep in step with the whims of Trolltech and their ever changing APIs?
Boy am I looking forward to KDE 4, when once again we all get to load yet another multi-megabyte Qt library and half our applications stop working because no-one ships Qt 3 libraries any more. Yay.
Don't be ridiculous.
The elegance of Qt far surpasses that of WxWindows, and Qt offers many more powerful classes than WxWindows does (containers, database connection, etc.).
GTK+ may be a contender, but is there a native Mac OS X version? Additionally, last I checked, which was admittedly awhile back, the documentation was terrible and the support for the Windows port was sub-par. Additionally, since much of today's programming is OO, Qt is probably a more sensible choice for many programmers.
C# may offer some powerful functionality, but from my understanding, there is no cross-platform GUI toolkit. Windows Forms for windows, GTK# for *nix, etc...
Java, IMO, is the only one that matches (and surpasses) Qt, from that list. Personally, I like both Java and Qt, and pick whichever is more appropriate for the project I'm working on.
Really? More than Boost? A few of their libraries will be in the next C++ standard.
I've been using GTK for a while and gotten to like it. I'd like to know what does QT have to offer that GTK doesn't.
Cheers,
Adolfo
I don't think that's very much of a good thing. C++ is a horrible kludge of a language, and Qt tries to salvage it with it's signals/slots preprocessing and other hacks. Everyplace I've ever worked in C++, people spent a huge amount of time implementing clever hacks to add features to C++ which other languages have for free. They had legacy code (MFC) or skills and were willing to spend upwards of a third of the development time grafting things into C++ rather than switch. We should be grateful that Trolltech has spent the time so we don't have to.
However, if you want to see what a clean language can do for a framework, look at how sweet Objective-C and Cocoa go together. Message passing right in the language, a clean memory management model, proper abstract interfaces, dynamic runtime module loading... It's just so beautiful.
I've been employed writing Qt apps for the last two years, and it's OK, but do my freeware projects in Cocoa and there is just no comparison in terms of rapidity of development and features you get for free.
Of course Cocoa is a Mac thing, but presumably Objective-C is a gcc language and therefore available for anybody to write a framework around. (I haven't looked at cross-platform Cocoa clones.) If you were writing Qt today, Objective-C would have to get some consideration.
For what it's worth, I just statically link the Qt library into my app, and it works well. True, it adds a few megabytes to the executable size, but anyone can just download the
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
No, there's a very important distinction.
Again, you are playing games with words and attempting to confuse the issue. The same thing happens whenver this comes up with KDE/Qt supporters. They try to bury the issue in bullshit and false distinctions. There is no distriction... not for a developer. The GPL spreads to any app using KDE stuff, and Qt is part of the KDE platform. Fact. Twisted logic about Qt being "separate" is just smoke and mirrors.
The KDE people want KDE itself to remain LGPL - something which your (presuming you are grandparent) previous post would suggest you support. That's the reason they don't allow GPL libraries into KDE, and also why they're careful to keep KDE and Qt distinct. The idea is that propriety projects can still use KDE - they'll just have to buy a license for Qt.
Of course the KDE people want their libraries to remain LGPL -- because it would otherwise not function as a loss leader for TrollTech, and many of the core developers for KDE are Trolltech employees. The point is that anyone making claims about "quid pro quo" or Qt being somehow "more free" (because it encourages more GPL software) than the LGPLed GTK (for example) are engaging in pure hypocrisy, nonsense and Orwellian double-think.