[Development] The place of QML

[Frank Hemer]

On Tuesday 08 May 2012 13:18:26 lars.knoll at nokia.com wrote:
> 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).

... which I have for many years now ...

> >> ...
> >> 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.

I've been following this thread for quite a while now - and I felt like 
speaking up as this is probably of a major concern not just for me.
I simply want to encourage the need for a smooth migration path - I'm a 
commercial user (hello digia;-) but due to non-existent public lists at digia 
I felt like adding this somewhere in public.

I appreciate your work on qt a lot and want to add my 2ct for keeping it at 
the high level it already is.

Frank