Regarding GUI fidelity, Qt looks native both on OSX and windows (linux being of course a different topic since there is no such thing as a default toolkit)

Actually there are plenty of apps that are Qt based (for instance Opera, Skype) that many people don't even know are Qt apps.

So paying for a GUI library does not fit very well with the general Java atmosphere.

I wouldn't say that gtkmm is obscure, and it provides a very nice alternative to Qt. In fact, gtkmm does a better job of "feeling" C++ like than any others in my opinion.

Also being free has definitely helped Gtk in general.

It's the main reason why all the commercial *nix vendors threw their support behind GNOME instead of KDE. None of them wanted to lock their commercial partners into paying huge licensing fees for Qt.

Also being free has definitely helped Gtk in general. It's the main reason why all the commercial *nix vendors threw their support behind GNOME instead of KDE. None of them wanted to lock their commercial partners into paying huge licensing fees for Qt.

In Java you already have classes for network/sql/xml/file/etc access in the standard class library so a lot of Qt is not strictly necessary.

If Qt with support from Trolltech can make a developer more efficient and cut down code development time, the company will see near immediate ROI. The equation can change dramatically in Qt's favor when considering the cross-platform development capabilities, as well. That's how they'll make their decisions.

The way Trolltech business is, make them perpetual second alternative.

Almost all *nix software that isn't open source, is vertical market. And GTK does quite well there.

Sure. As long as the prices for those tools are reasonable. For many ISVs, QT's prices are outrageously high.

You only mentioned Linux vendors.

Sure. But they don't look or feel right, and don't integrate fully with the DE. And part of creating a commercial GUI application involves polishing it very well when it comes to GUI and desktop integration.

Opera is not Qt based. They use Qt for menus only. The actual theme engine is their own.

Per developer. And for a single platform license though right?

The cross platform (*nix / Windows / Mac) license is normally $6,600. And I am sure Trolltech didn't give you an 84% small business discount.

I have to develop for all three major platforms cause my software runs in mixed environments. And even with a small business discount, it would most likely still be over $4,000 per developer.

That is not affordable.

Not when there are very good tools out there that don't cost anything.

In most cases, Windows users care about native look and feel

Bugs that don't appear on Win32 but appear in GTK and Mac, and obscure bugs that mean that cross-platform apps aren't very cross-platform at all.

But if you're a OS/desktop maker, you want to give your customer a way to build application without any restriction to your target user/developper

Plus over $2,000 every 12 months to renew if I want to be able to legally use the upgrades for commercial development. If it were a one time thing, sure. But $2,000 for 12 months of update maintenance? Per developer? Nope. Not gonna happen.

Actually, Swing in the latest version of Java does a better job of looking and feeling native on Vista than the current version of Qt does. If you think it is ugly, you must be using the default ocean look and feel, instead of setting it to adopt the platform native look and feel.

Typically, I am using either Java or Python. I jumped off the C++ bandwagon quite a few years ago.

I've also been flirting with .NET a bit for Windows only development. They have some very impressive GUI development tools. But C++ is not an option I would ever want to go back to.

You haven't seen a Java 6 app running on GNOME recently have you?

It also looks and feels more native on GNOME than the latest version of Qt does, even with GNOME's attempts at skinning a Qt app to look like a GNOME app.

This is a relatively recent trend though. It used to be that most productivity applications did follow the HIG.

Well, it depends on what you mean. if you mean for desktop integration? (things like system tray icons, popup messages, and such)

Well, it's possible in Java. But discouraged. Because once you start calling underlying system APIs, your cross platform capability becomes pretty much non-existent.

Performance is on a par with C++ these days, and in some cases even exceeds C++. Java can do what are called speculative optimizations at runtime based on how an application is actually being used that are impossible for a static compiler to perform.

The deployment problems can be solved with tools like freeze, and py2exe.

Oh right. So I can open Netbeans or Eclipse or whatever, create a new project called 'Gnome System Tray Applet' and it will give me a Gnome System Tray Applet project with the UI designer and all the boiler plate code required?

I laugh at people jumping up and down and telling me that I'm wrong because the Java 6 LAF has finally got around to inheriting the native theme, icons and fonts - after ten+ years! Believe me, that is the minimum that's required from something that purports to allow you to develop desktop applications.

Well, they do impact the exe size significantly, because they bundle the interpretor within the exe. But then again, if you are currently statically linking Qt, your exe files are probably huge anyway.

It just bundles the Python source inside an exe with an interpretor that runs in. In other words, if keeping your source is a secret, it's a problem.

This is a relatively recent trend though. It used to be that most productivity applications did follow the HIG.

Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Acrobat, Director have had non-standard UIs for as long as I can remember (at least 9 years)

[q]Well, actually, MS Office for Mac did a pretty good job of following the Mac HIG guidelines

. Believe it or not, it's actually Apple that isn't following their own guidelines. Apple's HIG, for example, said that the brushed metal look and feel was only supposed to be used on applications intended to emulate physical devices, such as media players. But then Apple quickly started violating their own HIG by using the brushed metal look and feel for everything they wrote.

Honestly segedunum, you are the most pathetic troll I've ever seen, you are not a C++ nor Java developer, you don't understand the problem but here you are givin an "expert" opinion, I don't know who is more pathetic or moronic, you or the ones modding you up.

[i/]2. Open Netbeans. Find a project where I can create a control panel applet, a systray applet, a system service, a desktop shared component or a desktop GUI embeddable component. [/i]

gotta be the most retarded comment I've ever read in osnews.

Do what everyone else does, and did many years ago - use something else that makes deployment easier and we're you're not using unstable components. C'est la vie.

The parent was a naive and daft comment I have encountered many times that has no bearing on the real world at all...

Errr, no self-respecting developer is going to do that when they have better ways of doing this..