[Development] The place of QML

[Atlant Schmidt]

Peter, et al.:

> We don't wanna use obsolete stuff with a "architecture from
> the 90s" in times where "graphical technology has moved on" (Thiago).

  Computer architectures don't necessarily "become obsolete".
  Oh, trends come and trends go, but the fundamental concepts
  go on forever. For example, Linux is quite popular even
  though it is arguably a "computer architecture from 1970".

  Often, the proponents arguing for "new and improved" are
  simply arguing for the position they think will be most fun
  to work on; after all, it's always more fun to break exciting
  new ground than it is to have trod the same old sod yet again.
  But many of these new approaches are just "fashion" and if you
  wait a few years, fashions will change again and "old and
  obsolete" will be back in fashion (and often, simply because
  good sense has returned to the design community).


> Most people don't care what happens under the hood (QWidget
> or QML) when good desktop support is available.

  And some of us *DO* care very much what goes on under the
  hood. Me, I live in an embedded world running on a ~450 MHz
  processor with very limited RAM and graphics. There's just
  enough "stuff" there to make the traditional Qt approach
  work (just barely) but if the only choice Qt intends to
  offer me in the future is going to burden me with the
  overhead of a JavaScript (or even web) runtime, then I'm
  going to need a new graphical framework.

  Old and obsolete worked for me; New and improved (in this
  case) clearly isn't likely to.

                       Atlant

-----Original Message-----
From: development-bounces+aschmidt=dekaresearch.com at qt-project.org [mailto:development-bounces+aschmidt=dekaresearch.com at qt-project.org] On Behalf Of Peter Kümmel
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 02:12
To: development at qt-project.org
Subject: Re: [Development] The place of QML

On 16.05.2012 20:31, qtnext wrote:
> I am using Qt since 12 years or more... I have done a lot of work using qwidget, qgraphiscview, ....
> I have done some small apps with qml to display media : it works very well ... just the animation are a a litlle bit
> jerky and work not well on very small computer ...
> But now that Qt5 is here : the alpha seems very promising regarding performance ... and I have started a new big desktop
> application and I plan to use only Qml and it seems very promising .. I am sure that Quick2 is the way for new desktop
> application : We only need Qt desktop components, treeview, ... and it will rocks :)

Yes, that's the point. Most people don't care what happens under the hood (QWidget or QML)
when good desktop support is available. But currently for desktop apps you have the choice
between a "obsolete architecture" (Thiago) and an incomplete QML stack.

Non technicians don't care about if QWidget is done or not if it fits the needs,
but we are developers! We don't wanna use obsolete stuff with a
"architecture from the 90s" in times where "graphical technology has moved on" (Thiago).
But on the desktop we are forced to when we wanna a feature rich/complete framework.

So all the QML<->QWidget discussions are mainly because there is no complete Qml support on the desktop.

Desktop support has no high priority more anywhere.
It couldn't be so complex to make good Qml support on the desktop, simply throw
5 man years on it (shouldn't be impossible when there are already 200 Qt developers
at Nokia alone). But it doesn't happen because nobody wanna invest in the desktop.

So all you can do is using a system with a "obsolete architecture", diving deep
into QML and writing your own desktop elements, or waiting another one or two years.

And I don't like any of the options.

Peter


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