Author: Bobby Rockers

KDevelop vs. MVS.net

News Forge has a side by side comparison of KDevelop and Microsoft Visual Studio .Net. The article compares general application capabilities in the areas of UI, editing, compiling, frameworks, integration, and documentation. As would be expected by anyone familiar with the two, KDE/Qt thumps .Net in framework, UI, RAD design, and overall flexibility. The author also does a good job of noting some of the places Kdevelop is lacking. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

I found KDevelop is much better than I had expected before I started to actually work (as opposed to just play around) with it. KDevelop is more feature-rich than Microsoft’s product — and we’re talking actually useful things here — more flexible, and better integrated with different programming languages, frameworks, and third-party applications, and it has a less clunky user interface than the commercial contender.

And if Visual Studio existed as a native Linux application? I’d still rather use Kdevelop.

Qt, as far as its functionality, clarity and ease of use are concerned, can run circles around MFC without breaking a sweat, and similar can be said about GTK+. DotNet’s Windows Forms framework is a bit better than MFC, but still lags far behind Qt.

Overall, it was a very good review. The author brushes over autoconfig, probably the single hardest part of getting used to developing on Linux. If you are coming from a Windows world, the transition to autoconfig can be pretty difficult at first. The payoffs are distributed application building, multi-platform development (i.e. applications builds for hand-helds, desktops, and mainframes; all in the same source), and multi-application build logic.

If you have not had the opportunity to try Kdevelop and KDE/Qt I suggest you try out Knoppix a full featured KDE/Linux operating system on CD. Simply boot to the CD and run Linux. No install necessary. When you are done, you can remove the CD and boot back into your safe Windows environment. Knoppix will even access your Windows partitions, letting you save files to harddrive.

A quick Rant

I realized today (by looking up something on a co-workers computer) the my website doesn’t look right on Internet Explorer. Now my site is standards compliant… too bad IE is not. Damn, half ass-ed, CSS implementation! Please, please, please folks; get a real web browser.

Corba and KDE links

Was looking for a couple links on Friday and had to go searching for them. That is entirely unacceptable considering I have this nice blog to store all of my important links. So here they are:

  • KDE components— An overview of the advantages of KParts technology and it functional use inside of KDE. It also shows some of the staggering advantages that KParts provided over Corba.
  • No Corbra— An explanation of the limitations of Corba and vicariously the technological limitations Gnome (who chose to stay with Corba entirely too long.)
  • KDE 2.0 Technology— An old but surprisingly relevant explanation of some of the core KDE technology. The decisions made by the KDE 2.0 group have done amazing things to the direction and power of KDE. History has shown us that their decisions were (with the exception of the core KDE sound system interface) correct. After 2.0, KDE became the most popular Free Desktop environment in existence and its core technologies have made it the most advanced development environment in desktop computer history.

Linkage & Theory

C++ language tutorial is a quick tip type tutorial (try saying that five-times-fast.) It provided some useful information to me concerning namespaces in C++.

On the KDE front a HUGE amount of activity is going on in preparation for the move to Qt 4.0. Because of the underlying structural changes that will take place, many developers are taking this opportunity to re-evaluate and extend KDE. Some of the more interesting projects are Lyceum, a KDE documentation project centered around tutorials organized the way college classes are. Tenor a Contextual Link Engine. The best way to understand it is to read the article. Its pretty amazing stuff and absolutely blows away ANYTHING currently available in terms of desktop search functionality. You can read more on Tenor here. This kind of innovation really shows off the power, flexibility, and integration that is available to KDE. No desktop anywhere comes can compete with KDE on the technical level! KDE is also moving from CVS for version control to Subversion which will allow for better control of existing code along with more flexible control of our projects. There is even talk of porting KDE to Windows. Lots and lots of code theory with lots and lots of work to do. The future for KDE is looking very bright indeed.

Change and Stability

Ralph Peters in this position paper, originally posted in 2001 by Parameters magazine, discusses the role that stability plays in our foreign policy over the last 110 years. His point is that sense the Spanish-American war we have spend enormous resources propping up hopeless regimes in the futile attempt to contain the status quo; even at the expense of our shared national values. What’s more, Peters argues that our country’s success is a product of the overthrow of old-world paradigms. As such, the very stability we pursue works against our own long term best interests. The article is a though provoking piece but one paragraph stood out to me. While discussing the role of terrorism in his primary thesis, he makes one of the clearest observations about the nature of Middle Eastern terrorism I have ever read.

While most Islamic terrorism is culturally reactionary, another aspect of it is an impulse for change perverted by hopelessness. And terrorism is, finally, a brutal annoyance, but not a threat to America’s survival, despite the grim events of 11 September. Osama bin Laden and his ilk may kill thousands of Americans through flamboyant terrorist acts, but their deeds reflect tormented desperation and fear, not confidence or any positive capability. Terrorists may be able to destroy, but they cannot build, either a skyscraper or a successful state. Destruction is the only thing of which they remain capable, and destruction is their true god. These men seek annihilation, not only ours, but their own. No entrances are left open to them, only the possibility of a dramatic exit. They are failed men from failed states in a failing civilization. Claiming to represent the oppressed (but enraged by the “liberal” behavior of most Palestinians), fundamentalist terrorists of so hardened a temper would not be contented, but only further inflamed, by any peace settlement that did not inaugurate their version of the Kingdom of God on earth. They are not fighting for a just peace, but for their peace–and even if they attained that peace, they would desire another. They are, in every sense, lost souls, the irredeemable. Their savagery is not a result of the failure of any peace process, but a reaction to their own personal failures and to the failures of their entire way of life.

Another good part is the section discussing the relationship between Islamic governments in the Middle East and the Palestinians. Not exactly light reading, but well worth the time.

Javascript Debuggin

I have a disturbingly difficult JavaScript bug that I am trying to fix and needed a good introduction into using Venkman, the Javascript debugger. Here is a wonderful tutorial on just that subject. It works as a pretty good general introduction to using program debuggers. If you are not familiar with using debuggers in your application development process, check it out.

Sleep of the Oblivious

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has a superb article by Robert Kagan discussing the growing divide between Europe and the United States in how we handle international affairs. Kagan argues that a combination of Europe’s loss of international influence, combined with the relative safety provided by the umbrella of American military force have allow it to pursue its post Enlightenment Kantian ideal of “Perpetual Peace.”

The article was like a breath of fresh air in as much as it was an international policy evaluation that lacked almost all the red/blue, conservative/liberal, religious/secular bias that seems to be the norm for this kind of analysis nowadays. I believe Kagan undervalues the role that American individuality has played in our historically isolationistic world view. Specifically as it pertains to the UN and the role of international law. However I find its impossible to ignore the overall strength of his argument. I also disagree with the assessment that,  “Americans apparently feel no resentment at not being able to enter a postmodern utopia.”  I find that, increasingly, America’s “Ivory Tower” elite feel a great deal of resentment for the position soldered to the US and, to an even greater extend, that such a position even be necessary. Yet I suppose that such resentment has always been part of the La Trahison des clercs and is not to be unexpected.

Its a very long article (TTS is a god-sent at work!) but well worth the read. Especially if you are interested in the changing nature of America’s relationship with Europe and the long term ramifications thereof.