kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 12/4/2017 1:47 PM, jp charras wrote:
> Le 04/12/2017 à 18:53, Tomasz Wlostowski a écrit :
>> On 04/12/17 18:48, Chris Pavlina wrote:
>>> Hey, just a comment because I see people are wrestling with
>>> COMPONENT_TREE performance as I did when writing it. TEST ON MACOS. The
>>> performance of the widget there has a really different profile from on
>>> other systems. I had to do things in really unobvious ways to make it
>>> perform reasonably there.
>>>
>>
>> I've noticed spending more and more time fixing wxWidgets bugs instead
>> of Kicad bugs. Maybe we should have a serious look at Qt or Electron
>> (Webkit/JS-based UI) as a possible future alternative for wx...
>>
>> Tom (fighting with wxWidgets thread safety under Windows...)
> 
> Hi Tom,
> 
> I did not use QT when starting Kicad mainly because it was not free on Windows (only on Linux).
> 
> But, please, keep in mind the main reason you are not fighting with QT is the fact we are not using QT.
> 
> I remember coworkers who spent a lot of time to convert their work from QT3 to QT4 ...
> And QT4 is not the latest version.
> This is an issue we never have with wxWidgets.
> 
> When someone say me: you are using this tool, but this other tool has not these issues, well:
> - Of course this other tool has not these issues.
> - but this other tool has other issues.
> 
> So, before spending my time on QT, I want a *proof* we will have really less issues.
> I do not want just change the list of issues.
> And until now, I never see this proof.
> 

I wondered when this subject would rear it's ugly head again.  Every
couple of years we dig this horse up and beat it to death again.  It's
getting rather comical.  Like JP, I would like to see some proof of all
the wonderful things QT can do for us that wx cannot.  It has been a
long time since I've done anything with QT so maybe my information is
dated but I don't remember QT being all that.  I just remember trading
one set of issues for another.  I've used several UI toolkits over the
years and they all have pros and cons.  I'm not opposed to using any
toolkit.  I am opposed to doing it for someone's personal preference for
one toolkit over another.  The question remains, would the effort to
port to another toolkit be worth it?  I have seen no objective evidence
to support the assumption that switching to QT or any other toolkit will
make life better for KiCad developers and until I do, I see no reason to
kick wx to the curb.  What I do know is that the effort will be massive
and basically bring new feature development to a halt for a significant
period of time.

Cheers,

Wayne