Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 13th Dec 2010 19:27 UTC, submitted by lemur2
For the most time, I've been firmly in the largest camp when it comes to the Mono debate - the 'I don't care'-camp. With patent lawsuits being hotter than Lady Gaga right now, that changed. For good reason, so it seems; while firmly in the 'ZOMG-MICROSOFT-IS-T3H-EVILL!1!!ONE!'-camp, The-Source.com investigated the five most popular Mono applications, and the conclusion is clear: all of them implement a lot of namespaces which are not covered by Microsoft's community promise thing.
Thread beginning with comment 453452
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2008-12-26
Is this your personal opinion or that of your employer - Nokia?
Both. But yeah, Nokia people tend to use Qt and still like it ;-).
I've used Qt.. it's okay. It's nice, but it's no Objective-C, even though Trolltech did a damn fine job making it one of the better C++ UI's out there.
Qt has been advancing by leaps and bounds after TT acquisition. E.g. Qt Quick is all the rage these days.
I'm surprised to see someone likes ObjC, I've understood it doesn't really have much virtues by itself, esp. when compared with C++.
Speed.
That's debatable, compared to C++. Did MS rewrite IE in C# already? (they might have, didn't check).
Simplicity. Modern features. I seriously could not live without reflection, for example, and reflecting in C++ was painful at best.
Qt provides reflection (meta object protocol).
The fact that adding a virtual method to a base class will break the ABI for everything is really bad. It makes shipping applications a real PITA.
It's alright. You either recompile, or don't add a virtual method to base class. Retaining ABI is important for libraries/frameworks (like Qt), but apps don't really need to care.
Free Nokia advertisement aside - people could do a lot worse than take up Qt. It is probably the least offensive C++ UI library. Now that it has more agreeable licensing, it is probably worth looking at.
To remain on topic, taking a look at Qt is a very good idea when considering to use Mono. You don't risk getting sued (because Nokia clearly can't sue you for using stuff they themselves distribute with open license), and won't be in a "second class" situation (with C#, Microsoft .NET & Windows will always be the first class solution, others are also-ran. With Qt, Linux is a first solution).
Member since:2005-07-08
I'm surprised to see someone likes ObjC, I've understood it doesn't really have much virtues by itself, esp. when compared with C++.
I also am not that a big fan of Objective-C, but try to use some dynamic language features with C++. It is really a pain to do it properly, if at all.
"Speed.
That's debatable, compared to C++. Did MS rewrite IE in C# already? (they might have, didn't check).
"
Why should they?
You gain nothing by rewriting code that works.
"Simplicity. Modern features. I seriously could not live without reflection, for example, and reflecting in C++ was painful at best.
Qt provides reflection (meta object protocol).
"
This makes the C++ code dependent on Qt, while on C# and other modern languages it is part of the language itself.
"The fact that adding a virtual method to a base class will break the ABI for everything is really bad. It makes shipping applications a real PITA.
This is actually an issue with all OO languages, also know as Fragile Base Class problem.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."More News »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2006-05-30
No, actually very little software on a typical Linux desktop is written in C++.
By volume of code, not true. Openoffice, browsers... are written in C++. It doesn't matter much if my clock applet is written in C. "
This is subjective at best. Define C++. In fact, define C. I've seen C that is basically 90% inline assembler before. I've seen C++ that is essentially C with some class based wrappers.
C++ is "good enough", esp. when you use Qt framework. "
Is this your personal opinion or that of your employer - Nokia? I've used Qt.. it's okay. It's nice, but it's no Objective-C, even though Trolltech did a damn fine job making it one of the better C++ UI's out there.
Speed. Simplicity. Modern features. I seriously could not live without reflection, for example, and reflecting in C++ was painful at best. Also, it's hard to get around the short falls in the C++ static VMT implementation (or did they fix that in the 20xx spec?) The fact that adding a virtual method to a base class will break the ABI for everything is really bad. It makes shipping applications a real PITA.
Um.. okay. That's your opinion. I don't share it. Having done it both ways, I know which I prefer.
No. But then you are entitled to your opinion.
Free Nokia advertisement aside - people could do a lot worse than take up Qt. It is probably the least offensive C++ UI library. Now that it has more agreeable licensing, it is probably worth looking at.