[Qt-interest] Are there any disadvantages with QT

[BRM]

----- Original Message ----

> From: Marat Abrarov <abrarov at mail.ru>
> To: qt-interest at trolltech.com
> Qt is the best for "native" (!) development - don't compare it with .Net at all! 
> Compare Qt with GTK, MFC, wxWidgets.

.Net is a platform for development, just as Qt is a platform for development.
They both provide a lot of things, including widgets, ui, and more.
They only differ in how the resulting binaries are run, and the 'native' vs. 'managed' aspect.
But they very much are comparable.

> "Native" and managed code exist together at the different areas which sometimes 
> (sometimes it's developers' choice only)

.Net Assemblies, Managed, and Unmanaged code an very easily co-exist even in the same project.
That's part of why they have the 'managed' code that isn't purely .Net - e.g. C++/CLI (aka Managed C++).
The 'managed' code integrates easier and more efficiently with .Net Assemblies than unmanaged code.
To integrate unmanaged code with .Net Assemblies or Managed Code you have to thunk back and forth around the APIs, which is costly time-wise (e.g. CPU cycles).

> intersect. MS Office 2007 wasn't written in .Net (neither in .Net nor in MFC) - 
> why? MS Visual Studio 2010 (UI written
> in .Net) haven't been released yet - why? (this is one of the reasons of cause). 

FYI - last I heard, Microsoft was quite busy rewriting a lot of their stuff into .Net including MS Office.
Slowly, but surely. Why? It's a great little backup plan should they ever lose the Windows platform.
MS discussed moving their software to .Net when they first released .Net; so I would be very surprised if they had not mixed it in there. The 'Ribbon' is probably done in .Net, just a guess but likely.

> Qt is rather good not only because of
> its crossplatform capabilities but because of its accurate implementation and 
> its attention to details of UI (I use only Qt for Windows).

Qt's strengths:
Excellent at Cross-platform.
Excellent at GUI development.
Excellent as an API - well thought out, well designed, and very easy to use.

> The only "disadvantages with QT" I can speak now is the insufficient amount of 
> 3-d party rich widgets - may be the
> reason of this lies near MS support for the .Net advancement.

There are many 3rd party widgets out there for Qt; but most apps don't need them because of how much Qt already provides. It's either extremely simple to modify a widget to do what you need, or it's already there.

In either case, if you want to include a third-party widget (or add-on, e.g. QtService class) it's very easy to do.

Ben