[Qt-interest] The argument for Qt

[Rui Maciel]

Scott Aron Bloom wrote:

> I did not SAY KDE would die...  I said, KDE can die.. You said it
> cant... Which is total BS..
> 
> Any project can die, if something newer and sexier comes around, and
> people migrate towards it...

I don't believe "sexyness" comes into play. There might be a considerable 
number of people who enjoy jumping on bandwagons but people just don't start 
serious projects relying on how "sexy" a fundamental component might look, 
let alone go on wasting their time in major code rewrites without a pressing 
technical reason.


> Part of what has made Qt so powerful in the commercial environment, is
> the stability introduced by a real company (TrollTech and then Nokia)
> supporting it.

I don't believe that's the case.  What leads a considerable number of people 
to adopt Qt is the fact that it provides an extremely easy and flexible way 
to develop good looking GUI applications in C++.  Being able to develop 
cross-platform applications is also a plus.  This has absolutely nothing to 
do with having a "real company" supporting it.  There was a need for this 
sort of software and this need happened to be supplied by a "real company".  
If, instead of Trolltech, this sort of application framework was developed 
by, say, the Apache foundation then it would also be met with a similar 
level of success.


> Sorry, but KDE's release process is not the same as TrollTech's was or
> Nokia's is...
> 
> If no one is giving real commercial support, and I hope digia keeps it
> up... Qt will become one, in a long list of "project only  opensource
> widget sets" used by "those who now best" and make no money doing it...
> wxWidgets any one?

I don't believe it is reasonable to compare wxWidgets with Qt in this 
aspect.  Even if you do, wxWidgets does sport a very impressive list of 
users[1], which Qt doesn't quite match[2].  In fact, if we omit KDE and KDE-
related apps from the list of known Qt users, the list simply isn't very 
impressive.  Therefore, by your criteria, this would indicate that "making 
no money doing it" would be an advantage.


Rui Maciel

[1] http://www.wxwidgets.org/about/users.htm
[2] http://qt.nokia.com/qt-in-use/target/desktop