Reviews, News, and How To!
QT Allows Developers to Code Less
Recently, my company has begun transitioning from a much older method of developing programs to joining the rest of the 21st century. One of the biggest changes we're making is creating portable programs that can be used on multiple platforms so if we should decide a few years down the road that something else is better, we do not have to start from scratch.
Most of our programs are written in C++ and with the plethora of toolkits out there for writing programs, all claiming to be cross platform, it was hard to find which one to settle down on. In our case we chose Qt, a cross platform application framework and UI. We chose it because it offered a lot of services that C++ alone does not offer, like a great XML library and WebKit integration allowing you to use HTML5 in your apps. What was most surprising to me is that I can seriously write code on Windows, and compile and run the exact same code without changes on Windows, OSX, Linux, Symbian, MAEMO, etc.... Right now my company is developing an application using Qt that controls a sawmill. Using Qt we're able to go as far as presenting a 3d model of the wood being cut on the screen with only a few lines of code.
What's the best thing about Qt? It's free. Released under the LGPL, you can create commercial applications without releasing your source code or paying any royalty fees. With features like that, with that price tag, I'd recommend letting the developer in you give Qt a spin. You've got nothing to lose.
Comment
© 2012 Created by Chris Pirillo.
You need to be a member of Geeks to add comments!
Join Geeks