IBM Picks Qtopia Over PalmOS And PocketPC 285
Bill Kendrick writes "ZDNet,
Geek.com and others are reporting IBM's decision to choose Trolltech's Qtopia (the embedded version of their Qt library, used by the Sharp Zaurus PDA) in their forthcoming devices.
See the announcement at Trolltech's website, and an
earlier press release at IBM.com." Here's an earlier post about the new IBM reference platform.
Re:Why not Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Broadening the user base (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why not Linux? (Score:2, Informative)
"Why not?"
"It might make you look dumb."
"It's OK. This one just needs a little clarity".
QTopia is a development environment for portable and embeded devices. It runs on embeded versions of Linux.
Still no sync for Mac (Score:2, Informative)
crazy (Score:1, Informative)
PDAs typically use processors designed specifically for embedded environments. They're built from the ground up for low power consumption in preference to blazing speed. The PowerPC is exactly the opposite, as anyone who has sat down at a recent G4 can tell you -- these things scream.
Furthermore, Linux is specifically architectured for the server market, which is why it's seen so much success in the enterprise. Trying to tweak it to run on a PDA is an excercise in feudalism. The choice could also be bad news for Linux, as people will start to think of the OS as suitable for only small devices.
It's a good idea, but I'd like to see them take a more sensible approach.
This is probably not needed, (Score:4, Informative)
Qt is a multiplatform, C++ application development framework. One source runs natively on Windows, Unix/Linux, Mac 0S X, and embedded systems.
Go here [trolltech.com] for a brief overview from Trolltech.
Pretty cool with the customization aspect.. Is there any programmers out there who have some real experience? This is pretty interesting to me, and I wouldn't mind hearing some feedback and maybe links or something. =)
correction (Score:3, Informative)
After Sharp decided to use Qtopia on the Zarus, TrollTech seemed to lose interest in the Qtopia version for Familiar on the iPaq, so an open source fork was started called Opie http://opie.handhelds.org/
One of their goals is binary compatabilty with Qtopia though.
Yes and No (Score:5, Informative)
Re:crazy (Score:1, Informative)
The PowerPC 405LP was designed for embedded applications; it has no similarity to G4s other than the instruction set.
Re:Linux footprint too general-purpose. (Score:5, Informative)
This is the new battlefield (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Then that's not GPL... (Score:3, Informative)
GGI was never an X replacement (Score:5, Informative)
You might be thinking of the Berlin Project, which I see has moved over to something called Fresco. Haven't followed up on that in some time so I can't speak to its current development activity.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Re:Not to mention... (Score:4, Informative)
Not to mention a change of administration in the executive branch leading to a kinder, gentler, nation for our formerly oppressed corporate underclass.
Go back and reread your the history of the case; the soft-pedaling started during the Clinton administration. This isn't a Clinton/Bush or Dem/Rep issue, more a failure of the system as a whole. I'd have to go back and look again myself, but ISTR that the DOJ was toughest near the beginning, which was during the Bush Sr. administration.
And for those who are convinced that only the Reps favor corporate America, keep in mind that the Dems are heavily behind the push to maintain Big Media's stranglehold.
Re:Syncs with all OSes, opensource OS (Score:4, Informative)
Go out and buy a Sharp Zaurus. It has a 206Mhz StrongArm, keyboard, SD slot, and a CF slot that accepts memory, cameras, ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth cards. What does the NX70 have over that, other than a built-in camera?
The Zaurus SL-5500 [sharp-usa.com] is a good PDA and an even better "handheld computer." The SL-5600M [sharp-usa.com] will be even more capable when it is released.
Re:This is probably not needed, (Score:5, Informative)
I have no experience of the embedded version of Qt, so keep in mind I'm talking about the X11/Windows library here.
In three words: it fucking rocks.
Qt is simply the single best designed piece of software I have -ever- seen. While it sets out for a huge task, being a completely self-sufficient C++ framework, a multiplatform one at that (and it can indeed easily replace the entire MFC), the class hierarchy [trolltech.com] is extremely clean, and it's very easy to get the hang of it. Actually, the entire documentation [trolltech.com] is absolutely excellent, clear and very well cross-referenced. I've never stayed stuck while looking for some info in there (quite unlike the MSDN documentation!). Go take a peek, someday.
One of the nice things with Qt is, if you need to do some basic task, Qt makes it trivial. Reading a file line by line is an example I was confronted to just today: using the MFC's idea of files, it's tedious at best -- gotta do the nitty gritty job manually. Wasted time. Using Qt, it's, well, trivial [trolltech.com].
The other thing about Qt is, if you need to do something complex, Qt makes it very straightforward. For instance, yesterday, our VB programmer was trying to make a custom widget that lets you stack frames vertically, each under its own tab, and showing only one at a time. After hours of work, he got to work a simple version of it that couldn't resize, among other shortcomings. Well, it took me much less time to rapidly put together the same thing in Qt, only it worked right away without those shortcomings, could accept any kind of subwidget, and, oh, of course, could resize at will and would work right away on any platform. Keep in mind that this guy is very experienced with his tools, while I'm a relative beginner with Qt.
There are countless useful features in Qt. For instance, it doesn't duplicate data when duplication is not either required or specifically requested by the programmer. Copy a QString or a QPixmap ten times, and Qt will keep only one copy of the data in memory for all the instances. Modify one of the ten instances, and Qt will then replicate its data to modify it without touching the nine other instances.
And those guys actually license their boon of a tool under the GPL. That's almost too good to be true.
Anyway, enough rambling. If you're a programmer, do yourself a favor, and check out Qt. Even if you don't end up using it, you will likely learn quite a lot about how powerful object orientation can be when used by people who know what they are doing.
Re:Then that's not GPL... (Score:3, Informative)
So you could use Qt GPL version and make an app and sell it, but you'd also have to release the source code with it under the GPL license.
Re:This is probably not needed, (Score:4, Informative)
Qt is simply the single best designed piece of software I have -ever- seen. While it sets out for a huge task, being a completely self-sufficient C++ framework, a multiplatform one at that (and it can indeed easily replace the entire MFC), the class hierarchy [trolltech.com] is extremely clean, and it's very easy to get the hang of it. Actually, the entire documentation [trolltech.com] is absolutely excellent, clear and very well cross-referenced. I've never stayed stuck while looking for some info in there (quite unlike the MSDN documentation!). Go take a peek, someday.
The wxWindows documentation is online here [jussieu.fr]. Go take a peek - it's remarkably complete and detailed.
One of the nice things with Qt is, if you need to do some basic task, Qt makes it trivial. Reading a file line by line is an example I was confronted to just today: using the MFC's idea of files, it's tedious at best -- gotta do the nitty gritty job manually. Wasted time. Using Qt, it's, well, trivial [trolltech.com].
wxWindows provides a few ways of doing this:
you can either use a wxTextFile [jussieu.fr] or a wxTextInputStream [jussieu.fr].
Both give you a ReadLine method or equivalent.
The other thing about Qt is, if you need to do something complex, Qt makes it very straightforward. For instance, yesterday, our VB programmer was trying to make a custom widget that lets you stack frames vertically, each under its own tab, and showing only one at a time. After hours of work, he got to work a simple version of it that couldn't resize, among other shortcomings. Well, it took me much less time to rapidly put together the same thing in Qt, only it worked right away without those shortcomings, could accept any kind of subwidget, and, oh, of course, could resize at will and would work right away on any platform. Keep in mind that this guy is very experienced with his tools, while I'm a relative beginner with Qt.
Also easy with wxWindows. Their Sizer classes are by far the best method I've ever seen for laying out automatically resizable dialogs.
There are countless useful features in Qt. For instance, it doesn't duplicate data when duplication is not either required or specifically requested by the programmer. Copy a QString or a QPixmap ten times, and Qt will keep only one copy of the data in memory for all the instances. Modify one of the ten instances, and Qt will then replicate its data to modify it without touching the nine other instances.
wxWindows also reference-counts strings, bitmaps, and many other common data types.
And those guys actually license their boon of a tool under the GPL. That's almost too good to be true.
Unless you want the Windows version - that costs an arm and a leg. wxWindows is GPL for all platforms (and it currently supports more platforms than Qt).
Anyway, enough rambling. If you're a programmer, do yourself a favor, and check out Qt. Even if you don't end up using it, you will likely learn quite a lot about how powerful object orientation can be when used by people who know what they are doing.
Agreed. Check out both, though. Honestly, if I had a large budget to create a commercial cross-platform application, there's a good chance I'd choose Qt. But wxWindows has its advantages. For a free cross-platform software project, there's no contest: wxWindows is free on all platforms, with a very comparable feature set.
Re:Quite a shift (Score:3, Informative)
IBM is a lot older than you think. The company was started sometime in the late 1800s, and they built things like punch cards and typewriters. (Good typewriters too, as my finger recall, but appearently difficult to repair)
Re:Still no sync for Mac (Score:1, Informative)
You're factually correct (Score:3, Informative)
Without a doubt, once Bush took office and Ashcroft took the DOJ we had a new policy of dropping the case at all costs. The DOJ settled with defendant that had previously convicted. When have you ever seen that by a prosecutor? Extremely strange, and obviously political. This is not a Democrat vs. Republican thing, it's a Bush II policy issue, the effects of which are in the public record.
Cheers,
--Maynard