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Oh, he switched to QT for the GUI chapter. That's a significant change from FLTK. Should be well received as QT is popular in industry. Not sure how the learnin

Oh, he switched to QT for the GUI chapter. That's a significant change from FLTK. Should be well received as QT is popular in industry. Not sure how the learning curve will be affected.

layer8 2y ago
He uses a custom wrapper library, so not sure how much (if anything) of QT proper is exposed.
pjmlp 2y ago
For the better, with Qt there is QtCreator.
- spacechild1 2y ago
  Not sure what you are trying to say here. Qt, the library, and QtCreator, the IDE, are completely separate products. You can use QtCreator without Qt and vice versa. Now, I'm pretty sure you know that, hence my confusion...
  - earthnail 2y ago
    QtCreator helps with the learning curve as it‘s a very accessible IDE. One of the first IDEs I used in my career.
    - spacechild1 2y ago
      Sure, QtCreator is nice and it's actually my IDE of choice. I just wanted to point out that it is independent of Qt, the library.
      - germandiago 2y ago
        How it compares to CLion?
  - Kranar 2y ago
    Qt Creator makes working with Qt a heck of a lot easier in a way that working with Visual Studio or vim does not. It comes with an integrated Qt form designer, Quick Designer for QML, supports Qt's moc syntax out of the box, integrated support for Qt Test Integration, native support for Qt Assistant and documentation and integration with Qt's internationalization tools. The idea that "QtCreator" is some totally independent IDE that just coincidentally happens to have the letters Qt at the beginning in the same way that Java and JavaScript are independent of one another, but otherwise has no relationship to Qt the library is just patently absurd HN pedantry.
    - spacechild1 2y ago
      > that just coincidentally happens to have the letters Qt at the beginning That's not what I was trying to say. I just thought it's worth pointing out that QtCreator is really a general-purpose C++ IDE. (It's my favourite C++ IDE, btw.)
      - Kranar 2y ago
        It can be a general-purpose C++ IDE and also very tightly coupled to Qt at the same time. Visual Studio is also a general-purpose C++ IDE and yet I don't think anyone would say it's independent of Windows.
        spacechild1 2y ago
        Sure. Actually, I think I misunderstood OP. I think what he was trying to say is that by switching to Qt you also get a nice visual editor in the form of QtCreator, to which I agree!
    - chipdart 2y ago
      > Qt Creator makes working with Qt a heck of a lot easier in a way that working with Visual Studio or vim does not. That's only true if you intentionally ignore all the aspects where Qt Creator falls way short of what "visual studio or vim" are leaps and bounds ahead.
iso8859-1 2y ago
I wonder what Stroustrup thinks about the Meta Object Compiler. In a way Qt is its own dialect of C++.
- justin66 2y ago
  He's name-dropped CopperSpice in some of his speeches, so he's certainly aware that it's not universally adored.
- SubjectToChange 2y ago
  The MOC is just a code generation tool, it's about as objectionable as bison. A far greater sin, especially in the eyes of Stroustrup, is disabling exceptions
  - chipdart 2y ago
    > The MOC is just a code generation tool, it's about as objectionable as bison. I think you've missed the whole point. No one cares about implementation details. The critical aspect is that Qt imposes the use of a superset of C++ which includes keywords such as signals and slots. Technically it's not even C++, but a language which has its own unique keywords, concurrency model, object ownership and life cycle, etc.
    - jcelerier 2y ago
      This is overly dramatic. The "keywords" are just macros. If you don't want an additional preprocessor to generate code in a separate .cpp file from these macros, you can use https://github.com/woboq/verdigris https://github.com/woboq/verdigris The concurrency model, object ownership and life cycle you are mentioning are not part of C++, those are just conventions in specific C++ user groups - Qt code compiles plain and simple with pretty much every conformant C++ compiler and that makes it as much C++ as anything else.
UncleOxidant 2y ago
All of the 4 AI coding assistants I've tried (claude3, gemini, gpt4, deepseek) used SFML for graphics when I asked them to code boids and game of life in C++. I'm wondering if that's because it's cross platform or that there's more code out there using SFML that these models got trained on? SFML seems relatively recent compared to Qt or even FLTK, so it seems kind of odd that there would be more SFML training data. It also seems odd that all 4 were in agreement here that SFML should be used for graphics in a C++ program.
- forgotpwd16 2y ago
  SFML is a graphical library but not a GUI framework/toolkit that Qt/FLTK are.
- swatcoder 2y ago
  SFML is more accessible for lightweight/exploratory/educational use, and so I wouldn't be surprised if it appears more often in training data associated with those simple "let's learn" sized projects.

Oh, he switched to QT for the GUI chapter. That's a significant change from FLTK. Should be well received as QT is popular in industry. Not sure how the learning curve will be affected.

layer8 2y ago

He uses a custom wrapper library, so not sure how much (if anything) of QT proper is exposed.

pjmlp 2y ago

For the better, with Qt there is QtCreator.

spacechild1 2y ago
Not sure what you are trying to say here. Qt, the library, and QtCreator, the IDE, are completely separate products. You can use QtCreator without Qt and vice versa. Now, I'm pretty sure you know that, hence my confusion...
- earthnail 2y ago
  QtCreator helps with the learning curve as it‘s a very accessible IDE. One of the first IDEs I used in my career.
  - spacechild1 2y ago
    Sure, QtCreator is nice and it's actually my IDE of choice. I just wanted to point out that it is independent of Qt, the library.
    - germandiago 2y ago
      How it compares to CLion?
- Kranar 2y ago
  Qt Creator makes working with Qt a heck of a lot easier in a way that working with Visual Studio or vim does not. It comes with an integrated Qt form designer, Quick Designer for QML, supports Qt's moc syntax out of the box, integrated support for Qt Test Integration, native support for Qt Assistant and documentation and integration with Qt's internationalization tools. The idea that "QtCreator" is some totally independent IDE that just coincidentally happens to have the letters Qt at the beginning in the same way that Java and JavaScript are independent of one another, but otherwise has no relationship to Qt the library is just patently absurd HN pedantry.
  - spacechild1 2y ago
    > that just coincidentally happens to have the letters Qt at the beginning That's not what I was trying to say. I just thought it's worth pointing out that QtCreator is really a general-purpose C++ IDE. (It's my favourite C++ IDE, btw.)
    - Kranar 2y ago
      It can be a general-purpose C++ IDE and also very tightly coupled to Qt at the same time. Visual Studio is also a general-purpose C++ IDE and yet I don't think anyone would say it's independent of Windows.
      - spacechild1 2y ago
        Sure. Actually, I think I misunderstood OP. I think what he was trying to say is that by switching to Qt you also get a nice visual editor in the form of QtCreator, to which I agree!
  - chipdart 2y ago
    > Qt Creator makes working with Qt a heck of a lot easier in a way that working with Visual Studio or vim does not. That's only true if you intentionally ignore all the aspects where Qt Creator falls way short of what "visual studio or vim" are leaps and bounds ahead.

iso8859-1 2y ago

I wonder what Stroustrup thinks about the Meta Object Compiler. In a way Qt is its own dialect of C++.

justin66 2y ago
He's name-dropped CopperSpice in some of his speeches, so he's certainly aware that it's not universally adored.
SubjectToChange 2y ago
The MOC is just a code generation tool, it's about as objectionable as bison. A far greater sin, especially in the eyes of Stroustrup, is disabling exceptions
- chipdart 2y ago
  > The MOC is just a code generation tool, it's about as objectionable as bison. I think you've missed the whole point. No one cares about implementation details. The critical aspect is that Qt imposes the use of a superset of C++ which includes keywords such as signals and slots. Technically it's not even C++, but a language which has its own unique keywords, concurrency model, object ownership and life cycle, etc.
  - jcelerier 2y ago
    This is overly dramatic. The "keywords" are just macros. If you don't want an additional preprocessor to generate code in a separate .cpp file from these macros, you can use https://github.com/woboq/verdigris https://github.com/woboq/verdigris The concurrency model, object ownership and life cycle you are mentioning are not part of C++, those are just conventions in specific C++ user groups - Qt code compiles plain and simple with pretty much every conformant C++ compiler and that makes it as much C++ as anything else.

UncleOxidant 2y ago

All of the 4 AI coding assistants I've tried (claude3, gemini, gpt4, deepseek) used SFML for graphics when I asked them to code boids and game of life in C++. I'm wondering if that's because it's cross platform or that there's more code out there using SFML that these models got trained on? SFML seems relatively recent compared to Qt or even FLTK, so it seems kind of odd that there would be more SFML training data. It also seems odd that all 4 were in agreement here that SFML should be used for graphics in a C++ program.

forgotpwd16 2y ago
SFML is a graphical library but not a GUI framework/toolkit that Qt/FLTK are.
swatcoder 2y ago
SFML is more accessible for lightweight/exploratory/educational use, and so I wouldn't be surprised if it appears more often in training data associated with those simple "let's learn" sized projects.