[Interest] QtArg

[Thiago Macieira]

On quarta-feira, 11 de abril de 2012 17.46.55, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 11/04/12 16:03, Thiago Macieira wrote:
> > I understand that. Yes, I expect Qt 4 to be used for a long time too, but
> > I
> > really, really hope that there is no push to come to shove. I really
> > expect
> > that transitioning from Qt 4.8 to Qt 5.x be a matter of a few, easy
> > search-
> > and-replaces and then a recompile. So I expect that the transition be
> > undertaken by most projects at the first opportunity, like when you'd
> > upgrade across minor versions of Qt.
> 
> Lots of people seem to think that porting from Qt 4 to 5 would require
> the same amount of refactoring work as the change from Qt 3 to 4.  All I
> can say is "don't panic!"  That is not true.  The only "downside" with
> Qt 5 is that we can't switch to it, but rather will need to support it
> in parallel with Qt 4.

Why is that? Is this below the reason?

> Just as with the Qt 3/4 transition, the two versions will coexist for a
> few years, and if you want your apps to integrate well into people's
> desktops, you need to support both.  But with Qt 3 vs 4, this wasn't
> really possible, or required too much work so most people decided to
> either stay with Qt 3 for a while or rewrite for Qt 4 and only do minor
> maintenance updates to their Qt 3-based versions.
> 
> I don't think we will see this with Qt 5.  Supporting both 4 and 5 with
> a few #ifdefs seems quite feasible.

If you have started to look into this, let us know quickly which modifications 
you have to make. Some of the transition needs might be unintentional and we 
still have time to fix them.

> Anyway, I'm ranting too much since Qt 5 has not really deprecated C++.
> I just don't like the fact that I might need to put a "yet?" in the
> previous sentence.

We just believe that the future of complex, animated and fancy UIs will be 
better served by having a simple language which bother engineers and designers 
can use. That's QML. The fact that you can do a lot of logic in JavaScript is 
a bonus, not a requirement.

Furthermore, we also believe that those complex, animated and fancy UIs will 
not be restricted to mobile platforms. For one, all the embedded market will 
be jumping on it -- TVs, set-top boxes, satellite receivers; in-vehicle 
infotainment, in-flight entertainment; IP desk phones; refrigerators, coffee 
makers, etc. And eventually that change will also happen to the desktop 
systems.

And notwithstanding the language choice, we are completely convinced that the 
current QPainter drawing model is obsolete. It was correct in the 1990s and 
early 2000s, but it's no longer how graphics hardware works.

-- 
Thiago Macieira - thiago.macieira (AT) intel.com
  Software Architect - Intel Open Source Technology Center
     Intel Sweden AB - Registration Number: 556189-6027
     Knarrarnäsgatan 15, 164 40 Kista, Stockholm, Sweden
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