[Interest] QML vs Electron

[Bob Hood]

I want to thank all the respondents for such an interesting discussion.

I think René made some interesting observations regarding the massive 
community support for JS in term of package managers, frameworks and UI 
toolkits.  I think that is something that really presents a high bar of entry 
for QML, that everybody wanting to use it must basically roll their own.  As I 
pointed out, coming from a widget-rich environment to something where I must 
create my own has always kept me from adopting QML as my cross-device 
framework of choice.  I have to focus on writing the interface itself first 
before I can focus on writing my application logic.With widgets, I drop them 
in, and only focus on interface writing if I want to customize them.

Nikos pointed out:

> Electron forces you to write the entire application in JS.

That kind of struck me.  All of JavaScript's flaws notwithstanding, how could 
writing your application in a single language for all target devices be a bad 
thing?  Couple that with the massive community and its support (as René 
observed) and I think it is one of the driving factors that are causing 
frameworks like Electron to rise, and QML to languish as an option.

It seems like the Qt Company had a great idea, but once it was realized, they 
expected that it would just pick up steam on its own without any further 
effort on their part.  Certainly, it has its supporters here, but I can't see 
it being a viable alternative to things like Electron unless it is /fostered/ 
by the Qt Company.  As René pointed out:

> It's about growing the ecosystem through marketing and outreach, while 
> lowering the bar of entry by building better primitives and tooling for 
> working with Qt. It is something that the JS world has been exceedingly good at.

I would argue the same thing for "QML" if the Qt Company expects more adoption 
of it.  Otherwise, people are turning to easier-entry alternatives like Electron.
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