XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development [LWN.net]

XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development

Posted Oct 4, 2012 10:19 UTC (Thu) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185)
In reply to: XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development by gidoca
Parent article: XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development

Qt Designer provides visual laying out of controls. It generates xml that, yeah, is translated into C++ that puts the controls in a layout. I wouldn't call it a code generator, even though it's possible to add some basic signal-slot connections in Designer.

Creating gui's in QML on the other hand is a more manual process. But it's awe-inspiringly productive, even if you have to mix the json-like gui description with little snippets of javascript and backend objects in C++. It feels a bit weird to start with, but after a certain point, QML makes developers really happy.

Then again, calling for application development in high-level languages is not something new in 2012. Python and Qt have been a great option for developing gui apps since 1999 at least, that's thirteen years ago. And it's used today, used for big, commercial applications like Nuke.

Personally, I've found very little difference in developer productivity between Qt/C++ and Python + Qt. Using QML does increase productivity quite a bit. Writing a gui application in Java is a horrible experience -- but I have to admit that my knowledge is not current anymore, I stopped doing that six or seven years ago.

I have the feeling that Bart Massey is maybe a bit too much out of touch with developments in the past decade to present on this topic.

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XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development

Posted Oct 6, 2012 5:09 UTC (Sat) by lamawithonel (subscriber, #86149) [Link]

PyQt was my first thought. I've never actually tried it, but I've encountered enough quality applications using it that I would give it a go if I were starting a new project. A few examples I can think of off hand: the Eric IDE, HPLIP, the Calibre ebook manager, and Amarok, the KDE audio player.

XDC2012: Programming languages for X application development

Posted Oct 6, 2012 12:32 UTC (Sat) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

Amarok is written in C++...

$ sloccount amarok-2.6.0/
...
Totals grouped by language (dominant language first):
cpp:         213236 (98.15%)
ansic:         2595 (1.19%)
xml:           1267 (0.58%)
ruby:            62 (0.03%)
python:          54 (0.02%)
perl:            27 (0.01%)
sh:              10 (0.00%)
...