Qt long steep learning curve & expensive price!
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Hello,
I'm a student in the university and I'm planning to start my own -one man- company so my first step to do is choosing a reliable developing tool which I found Qt fits it but I found it very expensive (starts from 5500$) while Visual Studio and Xamarin much cheaper with a huge community (by comparing to Qt) and don't forget it's Microsoft for god sake!
My knowledge in C++ just like C# so I don't care about learning a new programming language I only want a something will continue in the future with best productivity & performance.
What do you suggest?
BTW, I found Qt Quick learning curve is steep by comparing to Xamarin (may be because I found tons of references & courses about Xamarin while Qt Quick didn't)
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Hi
Just as a note:
If you dynamic link to Qt. You can use under open source, even for
commercial projects. But you miss the dedicated support option.Well if you like c# , Visual Studio + Xamarin is a solid solution.
It has to be mentioned that Qt Quick (QML) is declarative in nature and
takes a bit longer to get into. And yes, one would wish for more books
and tutorials.
That said, Qt is the best framework i have ever used so for any desktop application,
it would be my number one choice. -
@mrjj Thanks,
Actually I made my tests using Qt open source edition but I faced two main problems didn't appear with Xamarin:
- The interface of Qt Quick doesn't appear completely native under Android and iOS so tried to use Felgo which does it perfectly but why I need to pay money for Qt guys and Felgo?! This is absolute madness!
- I needed to make a test for running Android app connects directly with MySQL server so building MySQL driver for Qt under Android is absolutely a nightmare (BTW, I failed to build it) while I did it within less than 5 minutes with Xamarin!
I forgot to mention that I failed to create Qt app supports RESTful so I used Felgo instead! But in Xamarin I did with first Google result I got!!!
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Hi
1: well it does not wrap all possible elements on mobile platforms so sometimes you have to use native calls.
2: Well it was decided to not ship a precompiled version of MySQL driver so developers could freely use what ever version they wish.It sounds like you are more into Xamarin already so why not just go with that ?
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It sounds like you are more into Xamarin already so why not just go with that ?
I still didn't decide that because:
- I found Qt for WebAssembly post which make crazy about Qt so it's crystal clear that Qt maybe will work for web in the future because it uses Javascript which is an advanced step over Xamarin.
- Qt in general is open source so I'll never afraid from dropping any product by the owner company because the community will continue to support it (or another company will does) so Digia is a safe choice for me while Microsoft isn't.
- Qt tools supports Linux (which I fall in love with it) while Microsoft only supports Windows and Mac.
I need to discuss all my concerns with you guys because my heart lean to Qt but my brain still consider Xamarin is a safe choice for me.
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It sounds like you are more into Xamarin already so why not just go with that ?
I still didn't decide that because:
- I found Qt for WebAssembly post which make crazy about Qt so it's crystal clear that Qt maybe will work for web in the future because it uses Javascript which is an advanced step over Xamarin.
- Qt in general is open source so I'll never afraid from dropping any product by the owner company because the community will continue to support it (or another company will does) so Digia is a safe choice for me while Microsoft isn't.
- Qt tools supports Linux (which I fall in love with it) while Microsoft only supports Windows and Mac.
I need to discuss all my concerns with you guys because my heart lean to Qt but my brain still consider Xamarin is a safe choice for me.
@Mehmet-Yilmaz said in Qt long steep learning curve & expensive price!:
I found Qt for WebAssembly post which make crazy about Qt so it's crystal clear that Qt maybe will work for web in the future because it uses Javascript which is an advanced step over Xamarin.
note, that QtWebAssembly uses static linking (means no LGPL here), so you will have to ship the source code if you want to use it commercially anyways.
For mobile platforms only LGLv3 is available (with newer Qt versions) so still no commercial apps without publishing the source. if you have no license. -
@raven-worx said in Qt long steep learning curve & expensive price!:
note, that QtWebAssembly uses static linking (means no LGPL here), so you will have to ship the source code if you want to use it commercially anyways.
For mobile platforms only LGLv3 is available (with newer Qt versions) so still no commercial apps without publishing the source. if you have no license.This brings me once again to the first post, Qt is very expensive for freelancers and small companies :(
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@raven-worx said in Qt long steep learning curve & expensive price!:
note, that QtWebAssembly uses static linking (means no LGPL here), so you will have to ship the source code if you want to use it commercially anyways.
For mobile platforms only LGLv3 is available (with newer Qt versions) so still no commercial apps without publishing the source. if you have no license.This brings me once again to the first post, Qt is very expensive for freelancers and small companies :(
@Mehmet-Yilmaz
yes unfortunately. There was once a start-up license available which was definitely effortable even for one-man companies, but they ditched it -
@raven-worx said in Qt long steep learning curve & expensive price!:
QtWebAssembly uses static linking (means no LGPL here
One note about this statement: this is wrong.
Static and LGPL is possible however, the constraints makes it usually complicated enough that people rather go with dynamic linking.
Interested in AI ? www.idiap.ch
Please read the Qt Code of Conduct - https://forum.qt.io/topic/113070/qt-code-of-conduct -
@raven-worx said in Qt long steep learning curve & expensive price!:
QtWebAssembly uses static linking (means no LGPL here
One note about this statement: this is wrong.
Static and LGPL is possible however, the constraints makes it usually complicated enough that people rather go with dynamic linking.
@SGaist said in Qt long steep learning curve & expensive price!:
One note about this statement: this is wrong.
ok you are right. my answer wasnt complete.
But i am not sure if this is still the case also for LGPLv3?Anyway it seems the open source license for QtWebAssembly platform plugin is GPL.
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Thanks a lots guys for the nice replies.
Unfortunately, It seems I'll go with Xamarin because it's much cheaper. -
@mrjj Thanks,
Actually I made my tests using Qt open source edition but I faced two main problems didn't appear with Xamarin:
- The interface of Qt Quick doesn't appear completely native under Android and iOS so tried to use Felgo which does it perfectly but why I need to pay money for Qt guys and Felgo?! This is absolute madness!
- I needed to make a test for running Android app connects directly with MySQL server so building MySQL driver for Qt under Android is absolutely a nightmare (BTW, I failed to build it) while I did it within less than 5 minutes with Xamarin!
I forgot to mention that I failed to create Qt app supports RESTful so I used Felgo instead! But in Xamarin I did with first Google result I got!!!
@Guest said in Qt long steep learning curve & expensive price!:
I forgot to mention that I failed to create Qt app supports RESTful so I used Felgo instead! But in Xamarin I did with first Google result I got!!!
Just asking out of curiosity. What do you mean by "supports RESTful"? REST is just a guideline on how to design server-side HTTP API. You can consume any HTTP API from Qt C++ (via QNetworkManager) or even from QML by using standard JavaScript XMLHTTPRequest without using Felgo. I do it all the time for our app which talks to our RESTful API server.
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Sure $5000 a year per developper is a very excessive price.
It may be smiling for companies like Audi but disqualify Qt on small markets at a time where most of the Developement Environments are free.Sure one could argue that a LGPL solution is available for free, but commercial projects cannot choose such solutions.
I today have no idea about runtime fees but I guess it would be maybe better to increase a little bit runtime fees (variable costs) and drastically decrease developper licence cost (fix costs).
Alain
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For what Qt brings to the table even if licensing it at $5000 a year, it can shave off man years in development. It is a very useful environment to learn and use. Definitely would have been easier to learn than Turbo C++ was to learn 25 years ago. It provides complete development tools that don't time out or require logging into the vendor so they can spy on you. LGPL licensing is more than flexible enough for commercial development. The LGPL licensing require zero dollars in royalties. It can easily help a starting developer bootstrap their company/projects for zero cost paid to the Qt company. They have people (not sure of affiliation) readily willing to help you in the forums to solve just about anything you run into. People ask basic questions from "How to make a string in Qt?" to "How do you parallelize an app?" You cannot put a price on that alone. Qt is a swiss army knife that keeps adding blades (and their sharp). Every release has some new feature that many of which I didn't know I needed until I saw it in Qt. It is an amazing set of tools, libraries, and development ecosystem. I have used other GUI systems and many times finding solutions take days if you ever find a solution. Qt is the inverse of that. Google any CS topic and the word Qt and you will either find a discussion about it, working code, or a Qt reference in the Qt documentation explaining how to use the topic.
My biggest complaint with Qt: Where have you been all my life?
C++ is a perfectly valid school of magic.
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For what Qt brings to the table even if licensing it at $5000 a year, it can shave off man years in development. It is a very useful environment to learn and use. Definitely would have been easier to learn than Turbo C++ was to learn 25 years ago. It provides complete development tools that don't time out or require logging into the vendor so they can spy on you. LGPL licensing is more than flexible enough for commercial development. The LGPL licensing require zero dollars in royalties. It can easily help a starting developer bootstrap their company/projects for zero cost paid to the Qt company. They have people (not sure of affiliation) readily willing to help you in the forums to solve just about anything you run into. People ask basic questions from "How to make a string in Qt?" to "How do you parallelize an app?" You cannot put a price on that alone. Qt is a swiss army knife that keeps adding blades (and their sharp). Every release has some new feature that many of which I didn't know I needed until I saw it in Qt. It is an amazing set of tools, libraries, and development ecosystem. I have used other GUI systems and many times finding solutions take days if you ever find a solution. Qt is the inverse of that. Google any CS topic and the word Qt and you will either find a discussion about it, working code, or a Qt reference in the Qt documentation explaining how to use the topic.
My biggest complaint with Qt: Where have you been all my life?
They have people (not sure of affiliation) readily willing to help you in the forums to solve just about anything you run into.
Indeed, most of us are not affiliated with The Qt Company and help in our free time in the forum, the mailing lists, at the code and bug report front.
And we do that, because the Qt community is such a great place, and anyone is welcome.
Thanks for your nice post, I fully second it.
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@mrjj Thanks,
Actually I made my tests using Qt open source edition but I faced two main problems didn't appear with Xamarin:
- The interface of Qt Quick doesn't appear completely native under Android and iOS so tried to use Felgo which does it perfectly but why I need to pay money for Qt guys and Felgo?! This is absolute madness!
- I needed to make a test for running Android app connects directly with MySQL server so building MySQL driver for Qt under Android is absolutely a nightmare (BTW, I failed to build it) while I did it within less than 5 minutes with Xamarin!
I forgot to mention that I failed to create Qt app supports RESTful so I used Felgo instead! But in Xamarin I did with first Google result I got!!!
@Guest said in Qt long steep learning curve & expensive price!:
why I need to pay money for Qt guys and Felgo?! This is absolute madness!
this part caught my attention deeply. Those are companies providing a service that you may find interesting, and that may help you solve your problem(s) so why not?
I'm planning to start my own -one man- company
In that case, aren't you planning to be paid money? It looks like you'll be at the same level of Qt or Felgo right?
