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Cross-Platform Development For Windows and OS X
An anonymous reader writes to let us know about an article in RegDeveloper detailing the use of Qt, Trolltech's cross-platform C++ toolkit, for development across Windows and Mac OS X. From the article: "QT not only goes across desktops but onto embedded devices as well. So any app you write with Qt will port to an embedded device with a frame buffer running Trolltech's embedded version of QT, called QtopiaCore."
I have been doing cross platform development with wxWindows and I have to say it makes it easy. So far I have an application which crashes with exactly the same fault* on Windows, OSX *and* Linux! You just can't buy productivity like that with commercial development frameworks. *Error 5: Developer is an idiot who hasn't programmed much since the BBC Master was cutting edge technology.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
There are the persistent rumors that the YellowBox technology from NextSTEP is still alive and well on the Apple Campus, and is just waiting for The Steve to give the "And one more thing..." signal for it to come back into the light. But whom does that help, exactly?
Its Qt and not QT which means Quicktime.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very partial to QT, but the title of the article is horribly named. The title implies that the body encompases a general approach to cross-platform development. It doesn't. The article is about "Cross-platform QT development". More importantly, no alternatives are mentioned. The entire development piece is about using QT based technologies to tackel the cross-platform problem. All of this is well and great, but don't sell the article as -the- solution when its a very specific howto implement X for problem Y.
Bye!
This is blatant slashvertisement. Qt's controls are all emulated, it's like using Java Swing when you can use SWT instead. Further more, it requires you to use non-standard c++ syntax together with a 'qt preprocessor'. The better choice is wxWidgets. It supports platforms, more compilers, has native controls, and it is open source.
If you use these things, do the programs look native to the operating system or do they look like Java?
I mean, one of the reason I don't use Firefox on OS X is because the form widgets look like crap (i.e. look like Windows).
It's not a news article, it's more of an overview for programmers. Actually, it's pretty well written, just not a 'headline'. Incidentally, I hadn't heard about the KDE/GNOME stuff until recently. I only ran across Qt when I was looking for an OSS (or just free) RAD tool.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
So I gather you guys sell Windows licenses as well, right? Or are you advocating your customers commit acts of piracy just because you're too cheap and/or incompetent to do a little leg work to recompile for OSX.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
- majority of Cocoa classes implemented
- can use OS X NIB files (user interface)
- uses Objective C - OS X "native" language
- can be used on MS Windows, Linux or other systems with UNIX taste as well
AFAIR, there was a project going on that will even convert your X Code files into GNUmakefiles that can be used directly on MS Windows, or at least someone was planning to do that. Contact the lists mentioned on their homepage for more information.See also: GNUstep and Cocoa
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
While everyone here appears to think that this is a troll, he actually has a point. Depending on the market it could be the best solution. However, if there is enough demand a competitor could release a MacOS version and steal your clients. And not just the MacOS clients. A company of say 100 with 2 Macs could decide to go with your competitor because of those two lousy Macs... Or a company thinking that someday they might want a Mac would have that much more incentive to avoid your product.
I read a blog about the business decisions behind the upcoming Mac port of IBM Notes (or do they still call it Lotus Notes?) Anyway, the comment was that Macs make up only 1% of the market but carry 99% of the weight. (Probably a slight exaggeration on their part.) When I say weight I'm referring to making purchasing decisions. They're a very vocal group and the decision to make a *good* native version of Notes was not based on Mac numbers but on the influence that those few Mac users wielded. Moral of the story, don't dismiss Macs just because only a few of your clients have them.
Willy
We used Qt for several rounds of development and it was always great to work with. In fact, I prefer their utility classes to the STL. Even if I was writing a single-platform project in c++ these days, I think I'd go for Qt.
Nowadays we're using Flash for the win/osx cross platform development. Big things are starting to come in that front.
Oh.. and Qt does use native (not emulated) widgets for win/osx.
He probably was referring to the KDE/Gnome flamewars that erupt on slashdot occassionaly. Evenyone knows those arguments are nonsense as Gnome is clearly inferior to KDE in every respect, apart from its gname.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
People like to say how wonderful Qt is, but you should think carefully about what you're getting into.
Almost all of our projects are open source, but occasionally will do some custom commercial stuff. Yet, because the commercial version of Qt has a per developer license, we'd end up paying as much for it as if we did all closed-source development, since it would be impractical to divide our developers that way. And Qt isn't cheap: a couple of thousand dollars per developer. Think carefully about what it would cost you if you introduce Qt and start using it.
An additional problem with it is that it (gratuitously) uses non-standard C++ extensions. That causes additional development headaches. And the Qt/Embedded version is not even fully compatible with the desktop version, and it's an all-or-nothing proposition (forget about using other toolkits on Qt/Embedded devices).
Overall, I fail to see the point of Qt for most people. For cross-platform development needs, between Java, J2ME, and wxWidgets, I think all the bases are covered at lower licensing costs and (in the case of Java and J2ME) lower development and maintenance costs and better platform coverage.
When I tried RealBasic 1.0 their demo tutorial produced code which crashed.
IF they can't be sure their first release is reliable, what does that say about their quality control and testing?
End of lesson. End of RB, for me.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
You, sir, just made the most insightful post ever on this blog. I have long held the opinion that anyone who thinks Gnome is better than KDE is suffering from an almost-incurable mental illness and is thoroughly deranged. I once suffered from the mental illness known as "thinking Gnome is superior" but I have since switched to KDE and got cured.
If you are a Gnome user, have no fear. The cure of your illness does not hurt. Simply install KDE, and don't worry, as long as you keep your Gtk libraries around, all those wonderful Gnome apps will still run. Granted, you will still suffer from brain-dead file dialogs designed for people with all of the intelligence of mucous, but you will be well on your way toward stable mental health.
Use the promo code "SLASH" for 40% off on registration.
Easy cross-platform development can be learned at wyoGuide (http://wyoguide.sf.net/). If you are serious and considers to sell your software anytimes in the future, there's no better choice.
. pdf), you would wish that more developers would follow wyoGuide.
If you know that one of the top inhibitors of Linux desktop adoption is applications (see http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005
O. Wyss
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html