[Interest] Roland Qml

Wed Jul 15 23:49:57 CEST 2020

On 7/15/20 1:36 PM, Jonathan Purol wrote:
>> As another has pointed out, this wasn't a jump, just a perfunctory
>> functional safety check. One of the things one does when working in an
>> FDA regulated or functional safety environment. You open the binary in a
>> standard text editor making certain nothing is obviously exposed. It's a
>> practice which evolved/occurs because at some point in history compiled
>> languages used to put some portions of the program in the binary in
>> "free text." With nothing more than a decent text editor in overstrike
>> mode someone with no real skills could change the "free text" and thus
>> put a life at risk. Traditionally this happened with hard coded strings.
>> While many could/would view that as "pranking" because someone could
>> tweak the help text in a funny way, it's life threatening if one has
>> maximum dose strings or tables and someone changes "Milligram" to
>> "Gram     " or some such unit change. Yes, if it exists in text it is
>> usually an abbreviation, but the reality is the same. When the maximum
>> safe does is 9 Milligrams but now all of the validation logic believes
>> it to be 9 Grams, a fatality can, and probably will, occur.
>
> I agree with the point that QML and JavaScript aren't the right choice
> for something as critical as medical decides. I don't believe I brought
> that across sufficiently.
> Of course errors can happen everywhere, but the choice of the tool is
> just as important as the skill with said tool.As I mentioned in my
> previous email: I despise JavaScript and consider QML to be far too
> infantile to be used as a proper library for what I work in -- desktop
> application development.

As you travel about the IT world you will learn management at big 
companies, especially if it went to an MBA diploma mill, lives by one motto.

"Cheaper is always better."

Right now the cheapest pool of labor is JavaScript. At least that is 
what I see in America and all of the off-shore companies that companies 
are talking to about such projects. Just ghost around UpWork and sites 
of that ilk where freelancers pay money to bid on contracts. You will 
see huge projects that are obviously thousands of man hours being bid 
for $500 or less. I've seen embedded systems projects on those sites 
from time to time and they too are being bid ludicrously low.

The problem is, a tool that is _only_ appropriate for phones is in the 
same toolbox being sold to/used by embedded systems developers. When 
management is looking to cut development costs they are going to hire 
developers who are "priced right" and they are going to use QML and 
JavaScript because JavaScript is what they know.

What has stunned me is the number of people who private emailed 
completely shocked that when you open the binary there is the 
JavaScript. I ran the spot check because it has been an industry thing 
for eons; at least I thought it was industry wide. Been warned about 
thinking before.

QML, if it exists at all, should be optically isolated in a phone only 
package. They might as well use JavaScript on there because Facebook is 
going to shoot the phone out from under them anyway.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/finance/technology/facebooks-software-kit-to-blame-for-popular-apps-crashing/ar-BB16AW5Y

Phones simply aren't secure and there are too many people hurling apps 
on them to ever make a phone secure. Well, a flip or stick phone that 
cannot install apps is secure. All you can do is make and receive phone 
calls and keep a limited number of entries for quick dialing. The phone 
that lets you have a life.

>> I have no doubt you are correct about their being many many
>> programmers better than I.
> It wasn't my intention to imply anything about your skills here, quite
> the opposite: I have barely any knowledge about you as a person, and
> whilst your points are very clear and your knowledge is extensive in
> certain areas, I don't know just how far your skills reach, so I didn't
> want to draw any comparisons there. Pardon me if I didn't convey that
> correctly.

I took no offense. Thick hide is mandatory in IT. Your statements about 
that weren't even close to offensive. Live by the advice gun slingers 
used to give.

No matter how fast you think you are; on any given day there is someone 
just fast enough.

>
> To me, personally, programming patterns, languages, mechanisms,
> principles, etc. are just a huge toolbox. You shouldn't use a bare piece
> of metal to fix an electric leak, just as you shouldn't use JavaScript
> to write core-essential software that is literally responsible to power
> life sustaining machines.

It shouldn't be in the same toolbox so it can never be used.

The "tool" that I and many others expected QML to be, given what we were 
told, was a "free text" thing that pre-compiled to Widgets before the 
actual compile. They were just transitioning away from the XML file that 
is a .UI. You couldn't have programming logic in it. You could establish 
some connections just like you can in the XML, but that was it.

> Right now I work as an indie developer on a passion project of mine and
> have been for quite some while. We've struggled to find a proper GUI
> toolkit, as I refuse to touch Chromium or anything in that area even if
> it would be a lot easier and more profitble. We've gone from JavaFX to
> Dear ImGui to Qt and are now investigating GTK, simply because Qt just
> has a lot of things I dislike the more I use it (then again that happens
> with everything that isn't tailored to you personally when you use it
> for a while).
> Among my adventures in trying to find a toolkit better suited to our
> situation
> (
> 1. One GUI developer
> 2. Two developers total
> 3. A funding in the 2 digit numbers each month via donations
> )

Take a look at a very old, now OpenSource, toolset if you are looking 
for "just a UI."

http://openzinc.org/

I haven't done anything with it in many many years. The screen shots on 
the Web site don't do it any favors either.

If you want something bizarre to work with take a look at U++

https://www.ultimatepp.org/www$uppweb$apps$en-us.html

I've never been able to actually bring myself to do anything with it. 
Bit too weird a leap for me.

>
> My point is, that there is a place for QML in this world, and for the
> JavaScript within too. Blaming the tool for being used inappropriately
> instead of the worker or the system that creates the worker's interest
> in doing shoddy but profitable work is something I personally disagree
> with. You don't sue knife companies simply because some maniacs use them
> to commit atrocities either (maybe comparing JavaScript to murder is a
> bit of a stretch.. just maybe).

Actually, people do sue knife companies. They sue step ladder companies 
too; that's why you find so many stickers on them telling people not to 
stand on the top step.

Part of me would have agreed with your statement if it hadn't been for 
the chorus of "you're never supposed to put logic in JavaScript, only UI 
code." Then don't allow it.

-- 
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630)-205-1593

http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com
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