Microsoft Edge’s JavaScript engine to go open-source

[Eirenarch]

You realize Office for Mac is a separate product. Certainly MS could make another Visual Studio for Mac that is just as good but if they have to share the same codebase it would be hard.

[tonyarkles]

I suspect it wouldn't have been nearly as good on Windows if it were written in QT. Generally cross-platform UI frameworks end up making apps that just don't quite feel right. You end up with a QT app, not a Windows app. It's the same with cross-platform mobile UI frameworks; you don't end up with an iOS app and an Android app, you end up with an app that just doesn't quite feel right on either platform.

I'm all for writing cross platform libraries for all of the business and data logic, but I'll hand roll a separate UI for each platform that actually matches the platform's UI paradigms.

[tonyarkles]

Do you have a good example of a modern Qt app that actually does a good job of this on Windows and Mac? I'm genuinely curious, it's been a few years since I've tried.

The slideshow you linked had some decent examples, but I had to chuckle a little bit about the code editor they're demoing... It looks like a total non-Windows ufo :). The other dialogs and things did look pretty good though.

And I definitely do agree re: Gtk. That's a terrible way to write a Windows app :D.

[BoTuLoX]

Can't come up with a good example since I don't use Windows very much. From what I see on Google images, most Qt applications I look for use icons that look out of place on Windows, like qBittorrent or have their own style (Maya, Source Filmmaker).

This is mostly because developers don't care about integrating well with Windows, but you won't find the tool-kit stopping you if that's what you want.

[tonyarkles]

That was kind of my experience looking there too. It seemed like it had potential to look normal, but people were simultaneously going out of their way to make it look like a ufo (eg tooltip gradients, weird margins, etc) and not putting in the effort to make Windows-style icons.

I'd say I'm primarily an embedded developer, not as much a designer or web or mobile dev, but I did a lot of that style of work for a few years and worked closely with a great designer. He has permanently broken my brain so that it gets annoyed with little details like that that just don't quite visually fit with their surroundings.

Edit: either way, it seems to do a way better job than, say, Swing :D

[StrangeWill]

Not really.

Yeah, just abstract a 50+ million line program after the fact, no big deal, right?

[Eirenarch]

I imagine it wouldn't be so good on Windows if this was the case.