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Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

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Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#201

Post by chrisza4 »

cheez wrote: post #167
guhcampos wrote: post #144

Unfortunatelly PyQt does not solve the problem of Javascript engineers who are not willing to learn a new programming language. That's the whole reason for the whole Javascript fadigue. Computer Science has had "had tools for the right jobs" for years, but now we have a large developer base that only knows Javascript and think it's some kind of holy grail of computing. Happened before with Java. Happened before with…

Why are JavaScript programmers even relevant? Do they, as a group, have some desirable skill other than "will code for food"? At least successful C++ programmers HAVE to be decent-ish. The language is unforgiving.

They produce software. Some of those software are used. That is enough. Skill to surpass unforgiving territory is not as important as result.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#202

Post by guhcampos »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #161
loftyal wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give me some examples of "Computer Science has had "had tools for the right jobs"". Thanks

SQL comes to mind here.

SQL is a good one. Fortran is another. ASIC's, GPU's. When generic is not good enough, we create specific solutions.

Javascript is itself an example: it solves very well the problem of giving web pages interactivity. It was not designed to be a general purpose language though - it was, and is - being worked around into one.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#203

Post by guhcampos »

geofft wrote: post #156
guhcampos wrote: post #144

Unfortunatelly PyQt does not solve the problem of Javascript engineers who are not willing to learn a new programming language. That's the whole reason for the whole Javascript fadigue. Computer Science has had "had tools for the right jobs" for years, but now we have a large developer base that only knows Javascript and think it's some kind of holy grail of computing. Happened before with Java. Happened before with…

Speaking as a developer who primarily writes Python and secondarily C, Rust, C++, bash, and others as necessary, who has in fact worked on a large-scale C++ UI project in Qt on the Linux desktop running alongside PyGTK UIs, and who doesn't actively write JavaScript, I have to say that JavaScript is a really good choice of language, especially for UI, because it has a strong bias towards event-based programming and ca…

I agree with you. I can't think of a better language for writing GUI then Javascript right now, in particular because it has so many great toolkits and widget libraries.

But what makes those apps resource hungry and sluggish is usually not the UI: it's the whole lot of applicationg logic that's buried into their cores using Javascript code for stuff the language was not designed for.

I'm primarly a Python developer too, and on that respect I like Python's approach to C extensions. It's easy enough to rewrite your application logic into C when performance is important, and in general I think experienced Python programmers will do just that. The problem with Electron is both the lack of support for doing this, and the lack of experienced developers willing to do it.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#204

Post by chrisza4 »

papaf wrote: post #87
monkmartinez wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Any Javascript UI experience that I picked up 5 years ago is obsolete." That is only true in the sense that your Python 2.x experience didn't translate into your Python 3.x experience. That is, I think the overlap is similar on a language level. The difference lies in the libs/frameworks.

No its nothing like a minor language change. This actually happened to me and my Javascript UI experience (Jquery) is obsolete in the world of React and Angular or whatever the flavour of the month is.

What does obsolte mean actually? Today you still can build web app by jQuery.

Obsolete does not mean you cannot use your knowledge anymore. It means that community are shifting interested into new thing, maybe for better or for worse.

In this case, I do not think stick with JQuery or old framework for 5 years is productive for programming. If that happen to any community I would say that is a downside, not an upside.

Except for that fact that community and newly graduated junior developer are ahead of me in something. I can live with that

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#205

Post by guhcampos »

symlinkk wrote: post #171
guhcampos wrote: post #144

Unfortunatelly PyQt does not solve the problem of Javascript engineers who are not willing to learn a new programming language. That's the whole reason for the whole Javascript fadigue. Computer Science has had "had tools for the right jobs" for years, but now we have a large developer base that only knows Javascript and think it's some kind of holy grail of computing. Happened before with Java. Happened before with…

People like you hate the idea of using JavaScript to write desktop apps because you feel like the end result is too slow and inefficient. Web developers hate the idea of using C++ to write desktop apps because the language is brittle, outdated, and overly complex. We need a middle ground: a language with the syntax of a scripting language, like Python or JavaScript, that compiles down to native code, like C++ or Rust…

Rust might eventually get to that point, and C++ itself with QT is relatively easy if you stick to the basics. But in a way, anything trying to please both higher level and lower level developers is going to have to settle for some kind of middle ground.

The best situation I can think right now, and the one I would adopt myself, is indeed PyQt. Mostly because Python makes it easy to drop the compute-heavy application code into C extensions, not because of the GUI toolkit itself.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#206

Post by chrisza4 »

adamsea wrote: post #100
knowuh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of fashion and marketing tell us that appearance matters. It drives engineers batty, because it's often irrational. Just because something is irrational doesn't mean it doesn't have a huge impact on something like adoption. If we didn't care how things looked, we might all be wearing google glass.

To be annoying, and not to disagree with your comment in any real way at all, I’d argue it’s the engineers who are being irrational for choosing to ignore or not make the effort to understand human nature. I’m sure there are plenty of studies in psychology, social psychology, or anthropology explaining the rational basis behind why fashion/marketing has such a strong impact on human behavior. I’d also bet that the ad…

There is no reason why. Thise study explain “how”. Only reason that marketing/fashion have an impact on human is nature. “How” is what they studied

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#207

Post by wiremine »

flukus wrote: post #189
snerbles wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We want that, but we are the minority. I do agree that PyQt has a respectable documentation page. It is, however, a terrible page for attracting new developers and selling decision makers on the idea of using it.

> It is, however, a terrible page for attracting new developers and selling decision makers on the idea of using it. Would that be attracting people that are worth attracting though? Just like in business, not all customers are worth having.

Man, I'd hope so. Good engineers in this space tend to have a sense of style, IMHO.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#208

Post by infinite8s »

Klonoar wrote: post #145
nabla9 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an example of modern UI build with Qt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7en65HkjeQ&t=39

That's a killer UI, and I'm happy to admit it's incredibly good for what I've seen/used of Qt apps over the years... but it's not the norm. I would honestly pay money to see how much effort it took to get it to this. There's also the point I forgot to mention in my original post, which is that... if your entire app starts as a webapp, there's no sense in maintaining an entire separate Qt codebase when you could just…

Here's another example of a UI built in PyQt: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cyji3jRWIAA2LRY.jpg:large

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#209

Post by zepolen »

cheez wrote: post #167
guhcampos wrote: post #144

Unfortunatelly PyQt does not solve the problem of Javascript engineers who are not willing to learn a new programming language. That's the whole reason for the whole Javascript fadigue. Computer Science has had "had tools for the right jobs" for years, but now we have a large developer base that only knows Javascript and think it's some kind of holy grail of computing. Happened before with Java. Happened before with…

Why are JavaScript programmers even relevant? Do they, as a group, have some desirable skill other than "will code for food"? At least successful C++ programmers HAVE to be decent-ish. The language is unforgiving.

Dynamic languages are way more unforgiving than static languages.

Re: Show HN: Cross-platform desktop applications with PyQT

#210

Post by shakna »

symlinkk wrote: post #171
guhcampos wrote: post #144

Unfortunatelly PyQt does not solve the problem of Javascript engineers who are not willing to learn a new programming language. That's the whole reason for the whole Javascript fadigue. Computer Science has had "had tools for the right jobs" for years, but now we have a large developer base that only knows Javascript and think it's some kind of holy grail of computing. Happened before with Java. Happened before with…

People like you hate the idea of using JavaScript to write desktop apps because you feel like the end result is too slow and inefficient. Web developers hate the idea of using C++ to write desktop apps because the language is brittle, outdated, and overly complex. We need a middle ground: a language with the syntax of a scripting language, like Python or JavaScript, that compiles down to native code, like C++ or Rust…

Lua?

Its fairly fast, easy to link out to C if you need to. There are versions of the VM that are blisteringly fast, like Luajit, and others that are tiny like eLua.

Its syntax is incredibly easy, as is most of the language to understand.

It can be event and callback oriented.

And though dynamic, most gotchas about JS don't apply, as it isn't overly eager to typecast everything.

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