[Development] The place of QML

[lars.knoll at nokia.com]

On 5/8/12 12:08 PM, "ext Frank Hemer" <frank at hemer.org> wrote:

>On Tuesday 08 May 2012 09:50:16 Peter Kuemmel wrote:
>> > > Now we suddenly have an easy to use, yet compulsory, Turing complete
>> > > language with essentially no support from off-the-shelf tools.
>> >
>> > It's this "compulsory" part that I don't understand.
>> > The current situation is that if you don't want to use
>> > QML you don't use it.
>>
>> Does "don't use it" mean I should use QWidgets?
>> But who wants to base a new project on a system which
>> is officially called something that sounds like "obsolete"
>> and "dead (no new features)"; I know the marketing calls this
>> only "done".
>
>+1 with a big '!'

There's quite some work ongoing right now to get the QPA layer for the
desktop platforms just right, so that widgets work as they did in Qt 4.x.
They are being tested for regressions etc., so they won't suddenly stop
working. 

Nokia has stated that the company doesn't see QWidget's as their area of
focus for the future. Since nobody else has stepped up yet, this implies
that widgets have a 'done' status (which is *not* deprecated or even
dead). 

Neither me nor anybody else in the Qt project is stopping anybody from
doing more work there. Actually I personally will be very happy if someone
continues to work on them and improve them.

But it won't magically happen by itself. This has been stated before, I'll
repeat it nevertheless:

If you have an interest in new features here, you should consider stepping
up and investing. Either by investing your time and developing yourself or
by funding someone else to do the work (e.g. by buying a commercial
license or working with one of the many Qt partner companies).


>> ...
>> There is no smooth migration path for old-school Qt/C++ developers.
>
>And I expect porting an application using QWidget & friens to become an
>qml 
>application will cause at least equal pain as porting a qt3 application
>to 
>qt4:-(
>
>What I miss is the perspective for applications with long sales cycles
>(expect 
>this to be 10 to 15 years). Could we see a chance for a smooth migration
>here ... like a qml replacement for QWidgets that do NOT imply a complete
>redesing?
>
>Having that said, I'm still convinced qml will have a gread future - its
>just 
>not a good signal to notice that longterm basic components like QWidget
>get 
>suddenly shot out of the dark, end up as 'done' and the replacement AFAIK
>	
>comes with a real heavy impact of redesign.

QML components for the desktop are still work in progress. Because of that
let's wait and see what kind of migration path can be offered. I know it's
possible to create something that would allow for a stepwise migration and
a peaceful coexistence. This is also what I'd like to aim for, but as
anything else also this requires someone to invest time or money into it.

Cheers,
Lars