Considering desktop programming: Qt

(tags failure, programming)

I got back into using C++ at work, and it's pretty fun now. So now I'm looking at doing some desktop programming for fun. Good timing too, because the cross platform open-source GUI toolkit called Qt is going LGPL. Some Qt programs that I use enthusiastically are Google Earth and VLC (0.9 series). Let me not forget KDE, which I use whenever I go for a graphical Linux (which is rare but still). Basically Nokia swallowed the relatively little fish called Trolltech and now wants to spread this GUI all over the place.

This opens up options for using it at work, or at least for my hobby programming. I was dreading to learn the MFC, and ATL/WTL would be great but I would have to buy a recent Microsoft compiler to get the good stuff. With that kinda money I could be buying a new PC. :-/

The license change won't happen till March. This doesn't really affect me, since I don't intend to use it for work yet. There is that license clause which states you can't use the open-source version to jump start your commercial development. Nokia can't really check you're playing by the rules through technology, but it would look real suspicious releasing a full featured 1.0 product only days after buying a commercial Qt license.

Oh and I'm still considering Java Virtual Machine targeted programming. But not Java. Hell no. I'm thinking of dabbling with JRuby or Clojure. The latter has me high on hype fumes with its Software Transactional Memory this and Lisp-but-even-better that. Since Qt has bindings with Java, that means I can used it from these JVM hosted languages as well.

I need to practice more programming. This will probably impact my game playing. No more long RPGs for me. Haha, famous last words.