...why? I know this is the default opinion, but it's always seemed misplaced to me, even more so in 2024.
QT is run by a for-profit company ($QTCOM, TIL!) selling commercial licenses, Electron is maintained by OpenJS, who has it MIT-licensed all the way. QT uses a language that was designed in 1985 (literally 1-5y after GUIs first appeared) and Electron uses a language designed in 1995 (for the express purpose of modernized GUIs). QT stands alone on its monolithic rock, whereas Electron leverages Chromium and Node.js, two absolute powerhouses of free development and dependencies. Finally, and most importantly: the web is more beautiful and far more consistent than native-styled apps, and GUIs made whole-cloth from QT are almost always too ugly to even be in the running there. All of those downsides are worth it to save some RAM? Not even worth it, but worth lauding like it's a brave stance?
Sorry, just triggered my trauma from having to work in QT before I was able to find my true calling as a webslinger. No offense to the author of this particular app ofc, I'm sure it was the right choice for them and it looks well-executed for QT. ...Though if they used Electron, it could've been "Jocker" or "Tocker" (ts!) or "Chrocker" or "Electrocker" rather than "cock-er", but that's neither here nor there.
Joel_Mckay|1 year ago
wxwidgets would likely be cleaner to maintain over the long-term, and seems more stable for event callbacks etc.
I'll admit some users like spelunking environment variables like QT_QPA_PLATFORM, and application specific python3-venv installs...
Sometimes a web SPA is just easier to avoid the whole mess of porting. =3
anthk|1 year ago
bbor|1 year ago
QT is run by a for-profit company ($QTCOM, TIL!) selling commercial licenses, Electron is maintained by OpenJS, who has it MIT-licensed all the way. QT uses a language that was designed in 1985 (literally 1-5y after GUIs first appeared) and Electron uses a language designed in 1995 (for the express purpose of modernized GUIs). QT stands alone on its monolithic rock, whereas Electron leverages Chromium and Node.js, two absolute powerhouses of free development and dependencies. Finally, and most importantly: the web is more beautiful and far more consistent than native-styled apps, and GUIs made whole-cloth from QT are almost always too ugly to even be in the running there. All of those downsides are worth it to save some RAM? Not even worth it, but worth lauding like it's a brave stance?
Sorry, just triggered my trauma from having to work in QT before I was able to find my true calling as a webslinger. No offense to the author of this particular app ofc, I'm sure it was the right choice for them and it looks well-executed for QT. ...Though if they used Electron, it could've been "Jocker" or "Tocker" (ts!) or "Chrocker" or "Electrocker" rather than "cock-er", but that's neither here nor there.
stn_za|1 year ago