Ask HN: Is it worth it to learn desktop GUI frameworks anymore?

3 points by rnovak 10y ago ↗ HN

I don't consider myself entirely noob-ish in software/computer engineering. I've worked for a few years in low level development, and I think I have a good enough understanding to get a lot of things done.

I also spend a lot of time out-side of work on self-improvement, i.e. trying to become a better developer, learn more patterns, better ways of doing things, more practice, etc.

For a little while now, it has seemed like Software is in many ways converging in to the Web. Even big names like MSFT are beginning to offer a lot of "Cloud" based software. (I consider myself at least semi-competent in Web development, I've been a key contributor on a couple big projects for the SaaS company I work for).

Last week though, I thought it would be a good idea to try building a C++ application using Qt for the presentation layer. I've used WPF, .NET, ObjC/Cocoa, and JavaFX/Java Swing to build graphical programs. After a week though, I'm not really very close to getting Qt linked together correctly with CMake.

I'm just wondering if I should even bother? Web seems like it's dominating so much right now, that eventually desktop applications will be a thing of the past?

What are your personal thoughts on this, and should I even continue trying to improve my desktop GUI skills?

3 comments

[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 18.5 ms ] thread

proyb2 10y ago ↗

AppStore are more important than website and they're dominated on mobile devices, e.g. Facebook.

If you don't have the motivation to learn, find something you're comfortable with.

walterbell 10y ago ↗

An embedded browser can be packaged into a desktop app, http://www.tivix.com/blog/nwjs-and-electronjs-web-technology...

EleventhSun 10y ago ↗

Well, I can't speak for other frameworks, but C++/Qt is very much likely to be worth your time at some point.

In general, it's well written and well-documented. Many things you expect that will be hard to do in C++ are suddenly made easy. Just go through some of their small examples to get a gist of signals/slots, QObjects and QWidgets. If you're struggling with CMake I would recommend to stick with .pro files ("qmake") as the syntax is much, much less of a headache.