[Development] On QML, ownership, QObject-trees and QSharedPointer

[Sivan Greenberg]

Hi Rene,

On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Rene Jensen <rene at catatonic.dk> wrote:
>
> DOCUMENTATION...
>
> The truth is that initially in ten out of ten cases I resorted to
> guessing about the type and ownership of a value when I cross a
> boundary. Since I have thoroughly cross examined the docs, it must
> mean that (subjectively) I find it hard to extract the proper
> information from them. I miss clear best practices, and often feel
> more confused by reading the docs than I feel enlightened. In fact,
> let me upgrade that statement:
>
When I started with Qt , eager to get developing and contributing to
Qt itself , I also  hit similar walls. Now days I resort to use the
source (tm) more and more as I need more advanced stuff, especially
when trying to extend QML.
The question of ownership/linkage/transport of objects from QML to C++
and vice verse is indeed involved, and is a challenge to document to
all tastes. I think task based docs might be a partial solution to
start with.

> *you* the burden of reading messy prose text). We need quick reference
> cards containing COMPLETE information about all possibilities in one
> place. You are only asking for trouble if you make it mandatory to
> read every article under
> http://doc-snapshot.qt-project.org/4.8/qtquick.html to be able to
> write bug free code.
> Sorry. But I'm learning a new technology just about every week - most
> in vain. I get my dose of documentation, thank you.

 Thanks to your post and Christopher's reply (and ofcourse Kai who
discussed some of this a while ago on interest@), I personally feel
*much*  more enlightened  about it, and not just with regards to my
project's use case.

The docs are far from being in ideal shape- hopefully we this will
change.  I listed task based docs as suggested discussion point for
the docs session[0] next month in Berlin qt summit.

Realizing that improving Qt is now a community wide effort, I'd
appreciate if you could add your own feedback there if you see fit (I
know that it is all time consuming and apologize for that in advance,
but there's simply no other way to improve).

And on a related note, your email has been very informative and
specific in describing the issues we face. I would suggest that next
time don't hesitate to post even if it is a long post. Following the
Qt mailing lists for a while now, I learned that the large posts are
usually (1) gold mines for knowledge and expertise of Qt,  (2) highly
interesting. Your post scored both (1) and (2).

I also think that now, when Qt is trying to out reach new communities,
platforms and problem domains- this sort of constructive communication
is of grave importance. This is the sort of discussion I enjoy
following.

-Sivan

[0]: http://qt-project.org/groups/qt-contributors-summit-2012/wiki/Documentation