multi-platform GUI choice

[Kurt Granroth]

On Sunday 29 July 2001 01:27 pm, Lucas Vogel wrote:
> What compilers does the Windows edition compile under? If it only compiles
> under the commercial compilers(MS, Borland, etc.)

I'm really not sure.  I know that most people that use Qt for Windows use 
Visual Studio... but the, I think it's safe to say that most people who do 
any sort of C or C++ development for Windows use Visual Studio.

> I don't see how anyone
> would be compelled to purchase such an expensive library solely for the GUI
> layer. Even if it does compile under the free compilers(djgpp, cygwin),
> Visual Studio Enterprise Edition is still at least a couple hundred dollars
> cheaper than their license. At their current prices I don't see how they
> sell any Window licenses...

Trolltech makes the lion share of their revenue on selling Windows licenses 
and they are doing quite well.  What it comes down to is the quality of the 
Qt toolkit and the total cost of putting out the end product.  The purchase 
price of the toolkit itself is a very tiny fraction of the total cost of any 
non-trivial product.  All it takes is one software engineer working for a 
couple of weeks on a project to eclipse the cost of library.

What competant project managers look for is how much it will cost overall.  
In that case, you need to look at factors like "how easy is it to learn a new 
toolkit"? and "how good is the technical support?" and "how well designed is 
the product?"

Now even with those criteria, some managers will still choose MFC.  After 
all, MFC programmers are a dime-a-dozen so you usually don't have to get them 
"up to speed".  However, using MFC is a maddening procedure full of 
undocumented pitfalls and unexpected inconsistencies.  Having been an MFC 
programmer for two years, I can say that I will never *willingly* go back to 
that sort of hell.

Qt, on the other hand, is a very refreshing change from the norm.  It is BY 
FAR, the best designed toolkit I've ever used.  From my point of view, the 
additional cost of buying the toolkit would easily be made up by the fact 
that the project would be finished so much faster.
-- 
Kurt Granroth            | http://www.granroth.org
KDE Developer/Evangelist | SuSE Labs Open Source Developer
granroth@kde.org         | granroth@suse.com
            KDE -- Conquer Your Desktop