7 ms·

Nokia announces start of Qt 5 development

35 points by guruz 15y ago

stephenr 15y ago
I don't use Qt but at a glance QML sounds like XUL all over again to me, and we all know how great the UI's created with XUL are.
- tga 15y ago
  There is no implicit connection between the quality of the resulting user interface and the method you used to define it. If anything, having a nice concise, hierarchical way of defining a GUI should lead to better structured, more usable (uniformly spaced, resizable) interfaces than what you would normally get out of click-and-drop editors.
- smogzer 15y ago
  Been using QML for about 16 months, since it was in a development branch. I believe it has alot of potential for development of frontends and also I see it as a kind of a replacement of html which was created with static documents in mind, and then got aumented with other paradigms (css, javascript, dom, etc). I feel the QML language is in a embrionary state yet, they are writing the use cases and writing the language at the same time, which will in time show some redundancies in the concepts they use now. Example: 1)there should be more (multiple) inheritance so that we could derive from QML elements like we do in OOP; 2) there was no ability to access the items ids like in a DOM tree. But what sets a project IMHO is the ambition and the goals. And this team has both, and their work will deliver.
- contextfree 15y ago
  I haven't used XUL, but XAML on Microsoft platforms, and for that matter HTML, show that the basic concept can work very well. My biggest gripe with XAML is the heavy XML syntax, which it looks like QML ditches.
emwa 15y ago
I like the latest iteration of qt and find writing code in qml very enjoyable for a beginner like me. What worries me is that there will be no official support for qt in windows phone 7 now that Symbian is heading to the grave.
joezydeco 15y ago
Everything in this release says Qt/Embedded is dead and it's all about trying to stay relevant on smartphones. Small platforms need GUIs too, and there's just not enough MIPS on those platforms to handle QML and it's Javascript interpreter and all the other crap that goes with it. QML is a dog on anything below 700 MHz. "Qt will require OpenGL (ES) 2.0 to work." Sigh... Guess we're all using 4.7/4.8 forever.
- jsherer 15y ago
  I see a Qt fork coming that maintains the current approach for the future of the 4.x line.
  - danieldk 15y ago
    They are moving to open governance. So, why not make use of it and let your voice be heard before going through the enormous effort that a fork will be?
- nakkiel 15y ago
  They are loosing the unixes too. This has always been a big winner for Qt. What toolkits run on most operating systems? There sure aren't many of them and they mostly suck.
- pavlov 15y ago
  I wouldn't write off Qt/Embedded just yet. Nokia has regularly made noises about their wish to eventually use Qt on Series 40. Series 40 is their dumb-/featurephone OS. It powers most of the billion phones that Nokia sells yearly, and it's not set to be replaced by Windows Phone. There's no way OpenGL ES will make an appearance on those devices for a long while. The Qt 5 announcement made a point of emphasizing maximum source compatibility between Qt 4 and 5. It seems likely to me that Qt 4 will still see some development from Nokia.
  - joezydeco 15y ago
    So you're going to try and run V8 on a Series 40 class processor? This is just getting silly.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
nakkiel 15y ago
In Qt 5 the entry point for applications can be QML instead of C++. We expect that all UI will be written in QML. JavaScript will become a first class citizen and we expect that a lot of application logic will be written in JS instead of C++. This is very worrying. They are basically moving from being a tool to being a platform or a beast of that sort. They are going to adopt V8 too. It all shounds like they are trying very hard to be the next cool thing. In other words, they are building a totally different beast and risking they fanatic user base. In the end, I'm under the impression that there's a brillant guy who has been recently hired and who is backed by the execs. That guy came to the office one morning with his 7 pages "technical" proposition (because the guy has a bit of technical background, y'a know) and said Qt was cool stuff but he had a vision for the app^Wproduct. Or.. they are trying to kill Qt. Oh, and I'm disappointed.
- ZeSmith 15y ago
  Qt has been a huge platform for some time now. It's what I call the Boost syndrome: if you want to use a small part of Qt, you have to shove your whole arm in the machine.
  - mkl 15y ago
    This should get better in Qt with the big modularisation effort that's happening.
- wladimir 15y ago
  I think it's a logical progression. In the future, all UI scripting will likely tend toward JS. After all, it's what the front-end devs know. It's easier to learn for 'artistic types' than C++, Web frontend devs know it, and ActionScript is also JS-ish these days. Note though, that you don't have to use the scripting framework. You can define your GUI simply in C++ if you want.
  - ebiester 15y ago
    Point of clarification: ActionScript and JavaScript are both dialects of ECMAScript. Now, it isn't just that JS is easier to learn for 'artistic types', but it really is a quicker development process than traditional C++. My worry would be performance, just like everyone else. If you have already decided that a web application isn't good enough, why are you going to be okay with the JS penalty?
atrain34 15y ago
why?

35 points by guruz 15y ago

I don't use Qt but at a glance QML sounds like XUL all over again to me, and we all know how great the UI's created with XUL are.

tga 15y ago
There is no implicit connection between the quality of the resulting user interface and the method you used to define it. If anything, having a nice concise, hierarchical way of defining a GUI should lead to better structured, more usable (uniformly spaced, resizable) interfaces than what you would normally get out of click-and-drop editors.
smogzer 15y ago
Been using QML for about 16 months, since it was in a development branch. I believe it has alot of potential for development of frontends and also I see it as a kind of a replacement of html which was created with static documents in mind, and then got aumented with other paradigms (css, javascript, dom, etc). I feel the QML language is in a embrionary state yet, they are writing the use cases and writing the language at the same time, which will in time show some redundancies in the concepts they use now. Example: 1)there should be more (multiple) inheritance so that we could derive from QML elements like we do in OOP; 2) there was no ability to access the items ids like in a DOM tree. But what sets a project IMHO is the ambition and the goals. And this team has both, and their work will deliver.
contextfree 15y ago
I haven't used XUL, but XAML on Microsoft platforms, and for that matter HTML, show that the basic concept can work very well. My biggest gripe with XAML is the heavy XML syntax, which it looks like QML ditches.

emwa 15y ago

I like the latest iteration of qt and find writing code in qml very enjoyable for a beginner like me. What worries me is that there will be no official support for qt in windows phone 7 now that Symbian is heading to the grave.

joezydeco 15y ago

Everything in this release says Qt/Embedded is dead and it's all about trying to stay relevant on smartphones. Small platforms need GUIs too, and there's just not enough MIPS on those platforms to handle QML and it's Javascript interpreter and all the other crap that goes with it. QML is a dog on anything below 700 MHz. "Qt will require OpenGL (ES) 2.0 to work." Sigh... Guess we're all using 4.7/4.8 forever.

jsherer 15y ago
I see a Qt fork coming that maintains the current approach for the future of the 4.x line.
- danieldk 15y ago
  They are moving to open governance. So, why not make use of it and let your voice be heard before going through the enormous effort that a fork will be?
nakkiel 15y ago
They are loosing the unixes too. This has always been a big winner for Qt. What toolkits run on most operating systems? There sure aren't many of them and they mostly suck.
pavlov 15y ago
I wouldn't write off Qt/Embedded just yet. Nokia has regularly made noises about their wish to eventually use Qt on Series 40. Series 40 is their dumb-/featurephone OS. It powers most of the billion phones that Nokia sells yearly, and it's not set to be replaced by Windows Phone. There's no way OpenGL ES will make an appearance on those devices for a long while. The Qt 5 announcement made a point of emphasizing maximum source compatibility between Qt 4 and 5. It seems likely to me that Qt 4 will still see some development from Nokia.
- joezydeco 15y ago
  So you're going to try and run V8 on a Series 40 class processor? This is just getting silly.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

nakkiel 15y ago

In Qt 5 the entry point for applications can be QML instead of C++. We expect that all UI will be written in QML. JavaScript will become a first class citizen and we expect that a lot of application logic will be written in JS instead of C++. This is very worrying. They are basically moving from being a tool to being a platform or a beast of that sort. They are going to adopt V8 too. It all shounds like they are trying very hard to be the next cool thing. In other words, they are building a totally different beast and risking they fanatic user base. In the end, I'm under the impression that there's a brillant guy who has been recently hired and who is backed by the execs. That guy came to the office one morning with his 7 pages "technical" proposition (because the guy has a bit of technical background, y'a know) and said Qt was cool stuff but he had a vision for the app^Wproduct. Or.. they are trying to kill Qt. Oh, and I'm disappointed.

ZeSmith 15y ago
Qt has been a huge platform for some time now. It's what I call the Boost syndrome: if you want to use a small part of Qt, you have to shove your whole arm in the machine.
- mkl 15y ago
  This should get better in Qt with the big modularisation effort that's happening.
wladimir 15y ago
I think it's a logical progression. In the future, all UI scripting will likely tend toward JS. After all, it's what the front-end devs know. It's easier to learn for 'artistic types' than C++, Web frontend devs know it, and ActionScript is also JS-ish these days. Note though, that you don't have to use the scripting framework. You can define your GUI simply in C++ if you want.
- ebiester 15y ago
  Point of clarification: ActionScript and JavaScript are both dialects of ECMAScript. Now, it isn't just that JS is easier to learn for 'artistic types', but it really is a quicker development process than traditional C++. My worry would be performance, just like everyone else. If you have already decided that a web application isn't good enough, why are you going to be okay with the JS penalty?

atrain34 15y ago

why?