Thread: Say NO! to Qt-based Maemo!
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Joorin is offline Joorin
2010-04-21 , 11:42
Posts: 726 | Thanked: 345 times | Joined on Apr 2010 @ Sweden
#127
This got a tad long, but please take the time to at least read it once.

Originally Posted by ivanzorkic View Post
I am not a programmer, but I have friends that are and that tell me Qt is great. But, what amazes me is - whenever the developer/creator/designer (in this case Nokia) decides to implement serious changes to their product, there's always an "old-school guy".
I'm not sure if you're talking about me or OP, but I'll bite.

Now, the "old-school guy" is a person who claims that all the new features are somehow bad and that the old solutions were far better. They know what is best for the product - better than the company that actually made the product.
If you're talking about me, this is just pinning things on me that I've never said, nor implied. My comments relate to how a change might affect the platform and C++ not being the best of choices.

Then they give reasons which probably have some basis in reality, but always miss the point. The point being: the product should be good for the majority of people, not for the select few.
Again you're trying to pin things on me that's not corresponding to what I've said. There is nothing stopping a product from looking good and being as nice a hacking environment as the N900.

By making the proper choices combining look and feel with what's the best for using the platform and hardware you get just what you're asking for.

I'm not saying all change is good, but I'm saying that no change is definitely bad.
This I agree with completely.

And, as I said, I'm no programmer and most of you guys are. I'm an illustrator and a designer and I got an N900 for its multimedia and web capabilities. I never ran Linux, I spend my time in Photoshop and 3ds max and I use Wacom instead of code to send my thoughts out there. And I'm loving the device and what it may bring. No one has the right to tell me that its hacker-only or whatnot - as I use it daily with much joy and success.
Then imagine that you get to work one day and that new updates have been installed on your computer. Starting Photoshop and 3DS Max takes a little longer, but it's no biggie since you'll be using the programs for 8 hours so 2 seconds compared to 4 is nothing.

You start working and you notice that those common operations you do all the time take just a little longer. You also notice that the mouse sometimes just won't keep up.

The reason for the slowdowns and laggy mouse movements are that the updates contained a new toolkit for your window manager. You get niftier widgets, better looking docking, animated this and transparent that but you pay with general performance.

Now make your choice: Uninstall the updates and get the performance you're used to (and "uglier/older" UI) back or learn to live with a slower system (with a "more beautiful/newer" UI).

If you translate this to the N900, a less responsive touchscreen could potentially kill the product. Not being able to switch tasks as quickly as before would make multitasking less desirable. A web browser that's lagging even more than now just isn't tolerable.

This is what I'm talking about. By not being really careful when updating the more central parts of the system, you can kill it.

And some of you are willing to give all that up because - what - you don't like C++?
Again you're trying to pin something on me. I've been very open to Qt as perhaps being the best toolkit to get applications developed but my main concern is that it might cost us resources that we already are low on (CPU and RAM). On top of that I'm worried that code quality will drop.

These are concerns that spring from my experiences and knowledge about how computers, toolkitted development and Linux works. If you think I'm in the wrong, please correct me, but it's a bit sad to get degraded to "some old school guy" just because I'm not interested in a resource hungry UI and would prefer the best combination instead.