Re: Cross-Platform Windows plus Mac

In comp.sys.mac.programmer.help Paul Floyd <root@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:52:59 -0500, Doc O'Leary
>   <droleary.usenet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> In article <471c675c$0$25917$ba4acef3@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>  "Armel Asselin" <armelasselin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>> we gone the 3. way with wxWidgets (www.wxwidgets.org) which is free,
this is 
>>> definitely a correct way.
>>
>> For a very loose definition of "correct".  I haven't seen a single 
>> wxWidget-based app that works the way a Mac user expects.  Please point

>> me to yours by name, or any such app based on a ****table library that 
>> doesn't quite simply blow.
> 
> IMO Qt meets your requirements.

Would you happen to know of any downloadable Qt apps which look and behave

like native Mac apps? I would love to see one. I think it would be great 
if there were a viable cross-platform application framework, but so far 
every single application I've seen which was written in one completely 
failed to look or act the way I expected. If there are proper apps written

in Qt then perhaps my *****sment is wrong.

> It also has the huge advantage of not
> being written in an obscure dialect of C that is virtually unknown in
> the worlds of Windows and Unix.

I never understood this argument. Objective-C takes virtually no time to 
learn when compared against the time it takes to learn an application 
framework. The fact that it's not the same language as the rest of your 
code should be irrelevant; your platform-specific code isn't going to 
compile on other platforms *anyway*, so what's the big deal if it's 
failing to compile because it's missing a bunch of libraries and headers, 
or if it's failing to compile because it's missing a bunch of libraries 
and headers and is written in a language you don't happen to have a 
compiler for?

If you could elaborate a bit on your reasons for thinking that 
Objective-C itself is a problem without resorting to FUD words like 
"obscure" and "virtually unknown", I would very much like to know what 
they are.

I would also like to point out that your use of "the world of UNIX" is 
extremely non-standard. Mac OS X is the most widely used UNIX* out there, 
and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it had more than 50% of the 
UNIX market. I would therefore argue that Objective-C is in fact extremely

*well* known in the UNIX world, due to the massive dominance of the Mac in

this world. Given all this, I assume you meant to say the non-Mac UNIX 
world.

* Note that I am deliberately excluding Linux from the term "UNIX" because

it is really just a very well done UNIX lookalike, but including it 
wouldn't change the fact that Mac OS X has a very strong position in the 
UNIX world and so anything that's commonly used on the Mac can't be 
"virtually unknown" in this world.

-- 
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software