Re: Questions on cross-platform development...

["Arsalan Zaidi" <arsalan_zaidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 1. The product is going to have GUI portions to it.  I do not want to to
> be developing seperate GUIs for WinDOS (NT and 9x), Linux etc.  The only
> cross-platform toolkit I've heard of is Qt.  A developer license for
> Enterprise edition of Qt is not too expensive.  Are there other cross
> platform tooklits (preferably one that provides C bindings) that are
> licensed under a BSD-style license?  Are there commercial ones available?

Right, QT seems to be a popular choice. Check out /., I remember a thread
about this in Ask /. or something. Lots of links there.

BTW (and since I've never used QT, take this with a pinch of salt), I think
QT has some vague 'extensions' to C++ ... You might not like that very much.
More info from ppl who've worked with it please.

BTW, the only other cross-platform GUI that comes to mind is AWT/Swing. But
that means you have to buy into the whole Sun Java wet-dream...

GTK is being worked on as well, but it's been a while since I looked it up.

You know it all depends on what you're trying to do... For e.g. on a project
I'm working on right now, I've decided to implement the configuration
program as a CGI script. That way I get both remote admin features and a
flexible client with support for SSL, a clean, familiar interface, it's own
rudimentary scripting language and support for Java (other wise known as a
browser...). HTML + .jpegs are pretty cross-platform...

> 2. Makefiles.  Is there a cross platform make?  I don't mind using
> CygWin make as long as it can interact with the M$ compiler.

imake?

And again, I'm not sure about this (went through the CygWin site many many
moons ago and I've never had to work with it) but I think CygWin uses a port
of gcc.

>
> 3. Is it possible to write cross platform code without every using
> #ifdef PLATFORMs?

Actually, I think it's pretty difficult to write code across unix's without
using #ifdefs....

There's an O'Rielly book dealing with code portability across unix's. You
might want to check it out.

If you want maximum portability with a minimum of effort, there seems to be
only one choice. Java. Of course, that has it's own related set of problems
and limitations...

Alternately you could wait a few years for .NET ...

.. or maybe not.
>
> Thaths
>

--Arsalan.