[KLUG Programming] gui c++ programming

[Dirk H Bartley]

Hello 

A while ago I spent a bunch of time programming a graphical application
I wrote for M$.  I started in C and then migrated to C++ using MFC.  I'm
older and wiser now and want to do some graphical programming again and
would prefer to use c++.  Looking around I have found a couple of
possibilities, qt and gtkmm. 

I looked through the beginning programming manuals for both this weekend
and found them very similar but very different.  Both are c++ toolkits,
gtkmm is really a wrapper for gtk+ so there can sometimes be a slight
lag between a new feature in gtk and when it can be used in gtkmm.  qt
is mature because of the developer base and user base of kde.  qt
integrates well with the ide kdevelop.  I have yet to try an ide with
gtkmm.  (I tried a full mdi autocreate in kde and it would not compile
on my RH9 though) small qt projects compile simlply with qmake and
make.  gtkmm I will need to learn automake and autoconf which I was not
looking to do but may be a good thing to learn in the long run.  gtkmm
has library projects to integrate with glade and that is my next thing
to try.  gtkmm also has libraries to interface with gnome and bonobo but
I am unsure at the advantages of this yet because I have not read up on
gnome and bonobo features.  If I were to release a project using gtkmm,
I would be expecting anyone that uses it to compile 6 different
libraries.  Yuk and what a pain.  Is gtkmm distributed with ximmian? 
It's not in RH9. 

I'm just looking for comments.  Both are cross platform and will compile
on win32.  Have not done yet though. 

My big issues no matter which I choose are the available tools and
documentation for c++ tools available today.  String libraries and
docs.  Network libraries and docs.  ODBC libraries and docs.  Postgres
libraries and docs.  If I create a multi platform project all used
libraries will have to be available on both platforms.  Which is the
mailing list I should get on besides the obvious qt or grkmm ones for
c++.  Which website has the best info.  I'm just looking for comments.

I'm looking to do some programming to interface with databases.  Most
likely postgres.  Assume cross platform would have to be ODBC.


Dirk