[Development] The place of QML

[Atlant Schmidt]

Kate:

> >  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).
>
> Moving from typewritter to crt was not a fashion, moving from
> crt to windowing UI was not a fashion, moving to mobile is not
> a fashion but permanent change.

  Your view isn't broad enough. Some of us have *ALWAYS*
  been using a type-on-something-and-get-soft-text-displayed
  metaphor. "Expensive Typewriter" did this on the DEC PDP-1
  around 1960 or so. Oh, we've since changed from CRT displays
  to LCD or OLED displays, but the basic metaphor hasn't
  actually changed at all. Even now as it becomes "speak
  something and soft text gets displayed", it's *STILL*
  the same basic metaphor.

  Elsewhere in your E-mail, you decried command line input as
  being obsolete except for coders. Well, what is Siri but
  another style of command line input? Sure, the commands
  Siri processes are orders-of-magnitude more sophisticated
  than, say, those that bash processes, and they're spoken
  rather than typed, but the metaphor is still the same:
  Issue a command, get an action in response.

  Don't be too quick to dismiss old stuff as "obsolete".
  Maybe it just needs a little refurbishment (consider
  how RISC ("load-store" architectures turbocharged)
  emerged as the successor to CISC which had itself
  superseded the original load-store architectures.

                           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 Kate Alhola
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2012 04:22
To: development at qt-project.org
Subject: Re: [Development] The place of QML

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 1:35 PM, Atlant Schmidt
<aschmidt at dekaresearch.com> wrote:
> 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".

Computer architecture don't necessarily become obsolete but also
it could as easily become obsolete. There is no rule saying either.
Many "core" technologies like how programming languages work ( C/C++)
or how operating systems, filesystems etc work have been very stable
technologies and there has been only minor evolution. C/Unix skills
from 80's are still mostly valid today.

On other sections, mostly in user interface there has been rapid
evolution and several
revolutions that have changed all scene. You can just count, Unix/C
started from typewriter
terminal age when UI was line based fully modal dialog. Now this is
fully obsoleted from mainstream
users and remains as coders programming language. Then age of crt-terminals and
text based forms UI, once again fully obsoleted from everywhere. Then
next revolution was
windowing UI with mouse, it got about current form in first Macintosh
in 1984 and after that
there was been very little evolution. You cant say that moving from
typewriter to windowed UI
is just a trend, it was total paradigm shift. QWidgets are designed
perfectly fit to this 1984 paradigm.

Invention of current mobile finger based UI was a start of next
revolution and once again we
can't say that it is just a trend when users move from
desktops/laptops to tablets and handsets
and all computer market is shared again.

At the moment, Qml is only reasonable solution for mobile applications
for tablets and handsets
but at the moment QWidgets are still perfect match for desktop apps.

There is a big question: why any more make application that runs on
desktop only and needs major rewrite for mobile
platforms. Why make QWidget UI and then rewrite for Qml UI for mobile
or why make application for
desktop only. I agree that there are a many applications that are
desktop only like CAD programs etc
but for all other appls. It would be much better solution to make C++
core and then make Qml UI for
desktop and other for mobile.  I have used this method personally and
based on my personal experience
making separate Qml for desktop and mobile is less than 1% of work.
Much less than making desktop UI
with QWidgets and then mobile with Qml.

Then the other big question, what happens in future and should we
prepare for it rather than slowly adapt on it.
It is already known that tablets sell more than desktops and it is
predicted that they outsell laptops on 2015
but i bet that it happens earlier, may be end of 2013. I have been
using iPad since first model and I have also
couple of Android tablets. When I count "normal" usage, web, email
etc, I can do everything with tablet. If
I need write longer mails, I can use bluetooth keyboard. There is
still place for laptops and even high end desktops
for special use like software development, CAD programs etc but that
can be counted as special use.

I would like to say, that in most cases, applications should be
written so that they will also run on mobile because
world is moving to that direction.

>  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).

Moving from typewritter to crt was not a fashion, moving from crt to
windowing UI was not a fashion,
moving to mobile is not a fashion but permanent shange.

>
>> 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.

There is always some special cases as there are cases of command line UI
or text-forms UI.


Kate

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


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