[Interest] [Development] Windows 7 support will be, dropped in Qt 6

[Matthew Woehlke]

On 18/06/2020 11.11, Roland Hughes wrote:
> Could someone from such a background learn enough C syntax to write a 
> student C program like this one?
> [example program elided]

Maybe. To the point various others are making, just because someone 
hasn't learned the fundamentals doesn't mean they're incompetent.

OTOH, not everyone can learn competence. The point is, *you just don't 
know*.

> Could that same person write a page swapping system for a Linux-like OS 
> from scratch? No.

Again, *maybe*. Not, perhaps, without learning the fundamentals first, 
but as noted, just because they haven't learned *yet* doesn't mean they 
can't. But, again, there are plenty of people that can muddle through 
basic stuff with "training wheels" languages that *can't* grasp the 
fundamentals well enough for such tasks, and that's the point you 
(Roland) and I are making.

> When one comes from the scripting/interpreted language background; 
> especially if they never got a degree from a good school that taught 
> them proper fundamentals of software development; that is the training 
> wheels never off the bike.
> 
> Put them on C. No garbage collection. Requires proper understanding of 
> the fundamentals, especially Application Design, System Architecture, 
> and Data Structures. Basically it requires the skill to ride a bike that 
> goes very fast and can never have training wheels put on it.

Yup... Some can figure it out. Some won't.

To be fair, I might be in the latter category. I don't recall *formally* 
learning much about memory management (although there was some generic 
algorithms stuff); nevertheless, my first professional job was pure C 
and I managed well enough. I'd like to think I'm competent, if not amazing.

As an example, I don't consider deleteLater a major source of headaches 
(and most of my stuff *does* run on reasonably modern machines). Almost 
always if I use deleteLater, it's because I *know* that I can't just 
delete it *now*. I'm aware of needing to ensure that objects are either 
a) not deleted while in use, or b) are always referenced through 
*checked* weak pointers.

(Right now I'm working on unit tests for a non-Qt signal/slot system 
that needs to handle race conditions between the signal being emitted or 
destroyed at the same time the receiver is destroyed. Fun times, but not 
a problem outside of my experience, as it would be for someone that only 
knows Java/Python/etc.)

-- 
Matthew