[Qt-qml] import QtQuick 1.0

[aaron.kennedy at nokia.com]

Hi,

Currently all the core QML elements are in the “Qt” namespace, and the namespace’s version is coupled to the Qt version (eg. 4.7).  In retrospect we think this was a mistake.  And by “retrospect”, I mean “we always knew this was a mistake but we never got around to fixing it”.

For Qt 4.7.1, we are considering introducing a new namespace - “QtQuick 1.0”.  Although this breaks with Qt’s traditional definition of patch releases, it has the benefit of essentially decoupling the QML and Qt release cycles, which is especially important when you consider Qt’s recent glacial release pace.  Doing this means that we have the option of introducing new QML elements or properties in patch releases of Qt, rather than being forced to wait until a minor release to fix omissions or errors.  For example, Qt 4.7.2 might include “QtQuick 1.1” that could contain GestureArea.  If we think the Qt 4.7 series is going to be around for a long time, I think that the ability to do this is essential.  QML is quite tightly dependent on the rest of Qt, so an alternative strategy like we are using for webkit (ie. literally decoupling the releases) wouldn’t work.

It is important to highlight that this wouldn’t break any existing QML applications that were written against Qt 4.7.0.  “import Qt 4.7” would continue to work exactly as it always has.  Of course, a QML application written against Qt 4.7.1 might not work against Qt 4.7.0.  I think this is a “sacrifice” worth making.

If we made this change, we would obvious add an explanatory note to our documentation for those who have started with Qt 4.7.0, but we would remove all other mentions to the fact that “import Qt 4.7” ever worked – all the documentation, examples and demos would be updated to use “import QtQuick 1.0”.

Does anyone feel strongly about this issue?

Cheers,

Aaron
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