Review:Programming with Qt

ErikSev has graciously submitted a review to Mathias Kalle Dalheimer's latest O'Reilly effort Programming with Qt. For those of you interested, click below to find out more about. Programming with Qt author Matthias Kalle Dalheimer pages 361 publisher O'Reilly rating 9/10 reviewer ErikSev ISBN summary An excellent book on QT programming, and a must buy. The Scenario:

The Parrot Book, as this is sure to be known, is excellent for a beginner looking to quickly learn the ins and outs of Qt programming. Some previous experience with GUI programming helps, and previous C++ experience is required.

The Layout:

Programming with Qt starts with a chapter on Qt. It addresses freedom issues, portability issues, and other miscellaneous stuff. You then go through a basic program. The next few chapters introduce lots of different widgets and layout managers. Next come all sorts of other things like focus handling, graphics, working with perl, GUI builders, 2d transformations, etc. Look at the table of contents, it pretty much tells you what's included.

The Good:

Most of it. I personally bought this book having no previous experience with Qt, but familiar with GTK, MFC, etc. Within a day or two I was writing usable programs in Qt. This book is direct and to the point. Moreover, this is NOT just Linux users, Windows coders are definately covered, and portability is addressed extensively. GUI design, plus advanced tips and tricks are addressed. As the table of contents shows, all sorts of topics, both beginner and advanced, are covered.

The Bad:

A little too brief.just in spots. The cover of the book touts, "Covers Qt 1.4x and 2.0". I honestly feel that that is almost false advertising. Qt 2.0 is covered in a sparce 4 pages, with only two lines of code. One other nitpick, alot of lines of code are repeated, when he could just show the new/changed portions of the program. Final Thoughts:

While this book isn't a reference manual, it gets you started, and to the point where you can quickly write programs, use the more advanced features, and have the skills to find what you need in the system documentation. I do wish 2.0 were covered more, and that another unique program or two were written instead of so much code repetition. If your interested in learning Qt, and like dead trees to look at, this is a great buy. Everything you expect from a book with an animal on the cover and O'Reilly on the spine.

Pick this book up at Amazon.

Preface
1: Introduction
2: First Steps in Qt Programming
3: Learning More About Qt
4: A Guided Tour Through the Simple Widgets
5: A Guided Tour Through the Qt Dialogs
6: Using Layout Managers
7: Some Thoughts on GUI Design
8: Container Classes
9: Graphics
10: Text Processing
11: Working with Files and Directories
12: Inter-Application Communication
13: Working with Date and Time Values
14: Writing Your Own Widgets
15: Focus Handling
16: Advanced Event Handling
17: Advanced Signals and Slots
18: Debugging
19: Portability
20: Using GUI Builders
21: Qt Network Programming
22: Interfacing Qt with Other Languages and Libraries
23: Using the Visual C++ IDE for Qt Programs
24: Sample Qt Projects
25: A First Look at Qt 2.0