Justin Johansson wrote: ... > Qt, as many of you will know, is a C++ GUI framework produced by > formerly TrollTech and now acquired by Nokia for $xxx million (60 or > 160M I read somewhere). So Nokia pays megabucks for a GUI framework > that is C++ at its core. Questions are, why is Qt worth so much to > Nokia, why is Qt so damn popular on the Linux platform and what is the > secret of Qt's success given that it is basically a C++ framework > wrapped in some "meta-object compiler"?
1: Nokia is going to use Qt for everything, most importantly Symbian and Meego. 2: It's attractive not only because it is so huge, well designed and supported, but also because it performs, is cross-platform and looks good everywhere (as opposed to Java and gtk) 3: The C++ and meta-object compiler are not the core of it's success, but rather the combination of: - well-designed - HUGE coherent framework - good cross-platform capability - both open source and commercial - used by KDE, sponsored by Nokia > Having now been exposed to Qt for a few weeks and beginning to > understand its architecture of "signals and slots" and a pre-processor > that compiles down to C++, I am now wondering whether D is powerful > enough to achieve the same sorts of things that Qt seems to be doing. > > If I understand correctly, Qt brings a degree of "reflection capability" > to C++ amongst other things. Qt does a tremendous job of circumventing > the gaps in plain old C++ to achieve great goodness for GUI development > by way of its meta-object compiler. I think it is no problem, since basically it's a framework that uses runtime reflection coupled with an event system. This shouldn't be hard to achieve (or beat) in D. > May I ask if others on this NG are across Qt and D might be capable of > slotting into some of this market for cross-platform GUI development. Languages wise: surely, why not? The thousands of man-years a hypothetical D toolkit is behind Qt plus starting from 0% marketshare poses a slightly bigger problem though :) Not to mention D doesn't even have compilers on all the platforms Qt runs on. > As always, discussions such as these can go anywhere and everywhere on > DigitalMars D NG, and that's much of the joy in staying with this NG if > only as a bystander at times. > > Cheers and best regards to all, > > Justin Johansson
