[haiku-development] Re: Haiku, Qt and apps, oh my!

Why not create language bindings for BE API?
It would be nice see pyHaiku ;)
It brings a lot of applications to Haiku, i.e. emesene, deluge...

--


On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 1:48 PM, Karsten Heimrich <host.haiku@xxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Christoph,
>
> Christoph .J Thompson schrieb:
>
>> On Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:53:21 +0200
>> Karsten Heimrich <host.haiku@xxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Christoph .J Thompson schrieb:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:03:27 +0100
>>>> Karsten Heimrich <host.haiku@xxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Matt Madia schrieb:
>>>>>
>>>>>> We just need to take steps to encourage new developers to use the Be
>>>>>> API when writing completely new software.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Why?
>>>>>
>>>>> Since not all devs can live from just love and fresh air, some of them
>>>>> have to produce commercial apps to get money to buy food etc. (even if 
>>>>> it's
>>>>> just pizza :) ). So that said, why should one be so dumb and choose a
>>>>> platform specific API to develop a new app tied for that OS?
>>>>>
>>>> Because their app will be a native app which is simpler, runs
>>>> better/faster
>>>>
>>> Can you proof this?
>>>
>>
>> It's obvious. For Qt to be portable it requires some form of abstraction
>> layer
>> to work on all platforms.
>>
>>  without the all the portability bloat.
>>>>
>>> There is no portability bloat, it's all taken care of by Qt. I most cases
>>> there is just a simple recompile on the other platform needed.
>>>
>>
>> It's true that the application itself probably isn't more complex. But
>> the bloat is in Qt itself because it does what the App kit and other
>> kits do already. Basically it's code duplication and an abstraction
>> layer.
>>
>
> Sure, I'm  not forcing someone to write his app with Qt. But if you are
> serious about your investment, you can live with such a small compromise.
> And of course you are not forced to use it.
>
>  It is possible that Qt is more comprehensive than all the Haiku
>
>> kits together at the moment. But I think it's better to enhance the
>> Haiku kits than using Qt in their place.
>>
>>> Portability is mostly only
>>>> interesting for corporations to minimize costs.
>>>>
>>> Let's take for example Wonderbrush, maybe the number one of the teen
>>> usefull apps available for Haiku/ BeOS. It probably does not use anything
>>> special thats only available on Haiku/ BeOS. I even bet he could have
>>> skipped a bunch of code since Qt provides way more then just a GUI layer.
>>>
>>
>> But why would I want to use WonderBrush on any other OS than Haiku? The
>> main reason why I would want to use Haiku is because I find it better
>> than other OSes. Unless you are an OS affictionado I don't see why you
>> need to run several OSes. And furthermore I fail to see why you need
>> the same applications on all the OSes.
>>
>
> See next.
>
>  Assumed there would be a proper Qt port available, wouldn't it be silly to
>>> make it only available on Haiku again if Stephan is going to rewrite the
>>> thing? He would gain so much more from supporting the 3 major platforms and
>>> Haiku. He could still give it away for free on Haiku, while he would have an
>>> income from the other platforms.
>>>
>>
>> He sure could rewrite WonderBrush with Qt. Then the Windows people
>> wouldn't
>> care because they already have Photoshop, GIMP and Krita. The Linux/BSD
>> people wouldn't care because they already have GIMP and Krita. However
>> considering that Haiku promises to be much better than
>> Windows/Linux/BSD/MacOS X altogether, WonderBrush would be the best app
>> for image editing on Haiku which would be a good reason to pay for it.
>>
>
> So theres exactly the point.
>
> If I would be a graphics designer, I would be glad to run WonderBrush at
> work and at home on my beloved OS. I'm sure that would be easier then
> convincing my employer to run an untrusted OS, not capable to perform in
> cooperated environment just because i know WonderBrush is the best tool out
> there but simply runs on that platform.
>
> For me its a bit different, I'm forced to run Windows and Linux at work to
> do development, while at home I run Linux and Haiku. Wouldn't it be nice to
> have one IDE to develop on all platforms? I would be much more productive
> this way.
>
>  I really don't see what anyone gains from a program being able to run on
>>>> several platforms.
>>>>
>>> Income for the dev? For the user knowing the app and feeling comfortable
>>> even if he uses it on a different platform? No need to learn different apps
>>> while switching the platform?
>>>
>>
>> If I am satisfied with the apps on other platforms why would I want
>> to switch to Haiku in the first place?
>>
>
> Not sure. Why would you?
>
>  What's important is what you can do with a program,
>>>> and how efficient it is when doing what you need it to do.
>>>>
>>> Sure i wouldn't write the Haiku About with Qt, but what about an Word
>>> processor? Why would you spend month, maybe years to get something going
>>> when you could collaborate with 10 times more devs to have a proper platform
>>> independent solution. Not only you as dev would gain, also the user since it
>>> would be tested by thousands more and thus be more stable and feature
>>> complete.
>>>
>>
>> It would be better not to do that,
>>
>
> Well, then you have to live with the fact that you have to boot a different
> OS at some point in time to be able to use a proper Word processor. Or do
> your work online, where you even can't control what happens to your data.
>
>  if not Haiku as a platform will just
>> become another Linux distribution. One of my pet hates about Linux is
>> the fact that in order to do anything useful (on the desktop) with it
>> you need to have Qt3, Qt4, Kdelibs3, Kdelibs4, Gtk+, Gtkmm, WxWidgets,
>> libgnome[*], python, ruby, perl, mono, lua, guile, java, vala, swig,
>> gstreamer, xine, ffmpeg, libaudiofile for this, libsndfile for that,
>> libid3tag for this, taglib for that and id3lib thrown in for good
>> measure. gnutls? openssl? anyone? ^^ Why did this happen? Because the
>> devs used what was more convenient to them. To not end up in this hell,
>> I truly believe it's vital to enforce to the utmost the usage of the
>> native APIs.
>>
>
> But whats your point here? Imaging I would write a Media app, capable to
> handle all the task a user expects from such an app. Even if it would be an
> native app, would you force me to implement id3 tag handling, freedb lookup
> or whatever native as well? Every time someone implements such an app? Just
> because you fear to have a bunch of libs on your system? It's all about the
> OS and how it handles dependencies.
>
> Regards,
> Karsten
>
>

Other related posts: