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Qt is easily the best cross-platform UI kit that I have used, especially in combination with Python, which turns it into THE rapid prototyping tool. For my res

Qt is easily the best cross-platform UI kit that I have used, especially in combination with Python, which turns it into THE rapid prototyping tool. For my research I used PyQt/PySide to build lots of UI components for controlling my lab equipment, visualizing my data and running code in an interactive way. While doing this kind of thing using a native toolkit (MFC, GTK) would have been possible, it would probably have been much difficult and time-consuming. For me, Qt is a great example of beautiful and very good software architecture: Creating a cross-platform UI kit that works on platforms as diverse as Linux, Windows, MacOS, Android and Symbian and integrates well with the peculiar set of features of each platform is a daunting task. Qt as a UI abstraction layer solves this really beautifully, and both the philosophy and the architecture of the code is very well thought through. And in the last five years the developers added many interesting ideas (QML, Javascript support) that compete with and sometimes go beyond what's available in many native toolkits. So if you like reading good code you should have a look at Qt.

mlvljr 11y ago
One issue with Py* tools is, PyQt is not LGPL and PySide is for Qt 4 only at the moment. But yeah :)
pen2l 11y ago
> For my research I used PyQt/PySide to build lots of UI components for controlling my lab equipment, visualizing my data and running code in an interactive way. While doing this kind of thing using a native toolkit (MFC, GTK) would have been possible, it would probably have been much difficult and time-consuming. Neat. What kind of equipment were you controlling with? Is any of your code available? (I'm doing the same these days)
- ThePhysicist 11y ago
  All kinds of lab equipment, mostly interfaced via Visa and/or Gpib. My code is on Github: https://github.com/adewes/pyview https://github.com/adewes/pyview https://github.com/adewes/python-qubit-setup https://github.com/adewes/python-qubit-setup
sciurus 11y ago
For a new project, do you recommend PyQt or PySide?
- dikei 11y ago
  Stick with PyQt, PySide seems dead.
  - ThePhysicist 11y ago
    Yes PySide doesn't even provide Qt 5 bindings, so PyQt remains the best option imho.
  - maheart 11y ago
    PySide development was stalled, and its future was uncertain. However, PySide is being developed again for Qt5: https://github.com/PySide/pyside2 https://github.com/PySide/pyside2
- zokier 11y ago
  Not OP but my 2c; PySide is Qt 4.x only, for for that reason I'd recommend PyQt for new projects.
oblio 11y ago
I think it's a real shame the Python + Qt aren't more developed as a solution for creating cross platform mobile apps. At the moment there are several community efforts but most of them are half baked and have little adoption :(
- pekk 11y ago
  The popular mobile platforms have never been very friendly to Python. In each case there was some conscious decision to favor specific languages very heavily rather than making it feasible to use different languages. It is hard to see how say PSF could fix this single-handedly.
  - vorg 11y ago
    JVM languages such as Clojure, Scala and Kotlin are friendly to both mobile and javascript platforms.
anthk 11y ago
" While doing this kind of thing using a native toolkit (MFC, GTK) would have been possible, it would probably have been much difficult and time-consuming." With Lazarus and FreePascal you could do that in minutes.

mlvljr 11y ago

One issue with Py* tools is, PyQt is not LGPL and PySide is for Qt 4 only at the moment. But yeah :)

pen2l 11y ago

> For my research I used PyQt/PySide to build lots of UI components for controlling my lab equipment, visualizing my data and running code in an interactive way. While doing this kind of thing using a native toolkit (MFC, GTK) would have been possible, it would probably have been much difficult and time-consuming. Neat. What kind of equipment were you controlling with? Is any of your code available? (I'm doing the same these days)

ThePhysicist 11y ago
All kinds of lab equipment, mostly interfaced via Visa and/or Gpib. My code is on Github: https://github.com/adewes/pyview https://github.com/adewes/pyview https://github.com/adewes/python-qubit-setup https://github.com/adewes/python-qubit-setup

sciurus 11y ago

For a new project, do you recommend PyQt or PySide?

dikei 11y ago
Stick with PyQt, PySide seems dead.
- ThePhysicist 11y ago
  Yes PySide doesn't even provide Qt 5 bindings, so PyQt remains the best option imho.
- maheart 11y ago
  PySide development was stalled, and its future was uncertain. However, PySide is being developed again for Qt5: https://github.com/PySide/pyside2 https://github.com/PySide/pyside2
zokier 11y ago
Not OP but my 2c; PySide is Qt 4.x only, for for that reason I'd recommend PyQt for new projects.

oblio 11y ago

I think it's a real shame the Python + Qt aren't more developed as a solution for creating cross platform mobile apps. At the moment there are several community efforts but most of them are half baked and have little adoption :(

pekk 11y ago
The popular mobile platforms have never been very friendly to Python. In each case there was some conscious decision to favor specific languages very heavily rather than making it feasible to use different languages. It is hard to see how say PSF could fix this single-handedly.
- vorg 11y ago
  JVM languages such as Clojure, Scala and Kotlin are friendly to both mobile and javascript platforms.

anthk 11y ago

" While doing this kind of thing using a native toolkit (MFC, GTK) would have been possible, it would probably have been much difficult and time-consuming." With Lazarus and FreePascal you could do that in minutes.