what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

[kapil]

Hi,
i am quite new to linux.
i had worked in microsoft visual studio for creating small windows program as well as few web pages.
i am bit comfortable in c#

i was wondering if there is any good development software available.. which i can download for free.
i would first want to convert window based programs (which i developed) to linux based..

[carib]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

It is not up to date, but you can find something here.

Good luck.

[sithlord48]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

learn how to use QT creator....... QT4 is very nice, and cross platform

[kapil]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

i see i have to learn a new language anyways..
i wondering if i should start using java... or with qt?
Q.1. which one is easy to use.. and has good forum support
Q.2. i can use netBean or eclipse for java.. what about qt.. which IDE is easy for using qt?

[sithlord48]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

QT creator handles the entire process of creating programs for you. as a former VB programmer i found it a very easy switch (other then getting used to different API's )

i don't code in java so i can't help you there..

[kapil]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

sounds good..
but the search on QT showed that it is a proprietary software
they how can we use it freely?

[blobfish]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

qt is offered under several different licenses.
http://qt.nokia.com/products/licensing

[GreyGeek]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

sounds good..
but the search on QT showed that it is a proprietary software
they how can we use it freely?

Qt4 with QtCreator is an awesome combination. I developed in-house Qt4 applications for several years before I retired. I used MS VS C++ 6.0 which was made Qt4 "friendly" via a Trolltech supplied integration utility. QtCreator, which was released after I retired, meets and exceeds the capabilities of MSVC, and it is faster. Compiling my apps under MSVC took an average of 15-20 minutes. So, I dual booted to Linux at work and did all my development on Linux using Kate, gcc and Kdbg. Kate doesn't have true code completion, like QtCreator does, but it did collect all my var and lib names and offered spelling completion. Anyway, compiling my apps under Linux took 2 to 3 minutes, so I could code and test, code and test all day long. Under Windows with MSVC I could cycle at most about twice an hour. When I was satisfied with how the code was working under Linux I'd copy the source to my XP drive, reboot and compile the source in MSVC for production.

Unlike many other development tools on Linux, Qt4 comes in a complete package; Qt-Designer, Qt-Linquist and Qt-Assistant. Adding QtCreator, gcc and gdb, all of which are in the repository, completes the development environment.

Qt4 is offered in two licenses, GPL and Commercial, but the only difference between the two is that the commercial version includes bindings for Oracle and other commercial databases, but a knowledgeable programmer can add his own Oracle code and create the necessary connectivity libraries. Both include bindings to SQLite and PostgreSQL, which is what I used at work for development. I had compiler defines set to switch certain code segments to connect to our Oracle back end if the compile was on XP, otherwise the PostgreSQL segments were selected. PostgreSQL is 90-95% compatible with Oracle, and 100% compatible for the most commonly used SQL syntaxes.

If your project is OpenSource that is your license. For commercial projects EACH developer is required to have a commercial license (bulk licenses available) if a project is going to create a proprietary binary that will be sold to the public. In-house development doesn't require a commercial license unless you want support which, I should add, was very good when Trolltech was the owner. I have no clue if Nokia is continuing in the excellent support standards that Trolltech set. For open source Qt projects the best support is at the QtCentre forum.

[kapil]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

thanks for the replies...specially greygeek
i am going to make in house applications.
will download both java beans and qt.. and get hands on them..

[oblivion]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

Hi,
i am quite new to linux.
i had worked in microsoft visual studio for creating small windows program as well as few web pages.
i am bit comfortable in c#

i was wondering if there is any good development software available.. which i can download for free.
i would first want to convert window based programs (which i developed) to linux based..

Well, I use Ultimate++ which is a very very efficient and powerful cross-platform C/C++ develeopment environment (similar to QT) with a very powerful IDE. You can check it from:

http://www.ultimatepp.org/


One of the greatest benefit of the Ultimate++ is that, I believe, you don't need to know or care about which desktop you're on (gnome, kde, xfce, win, aero etc.) because it handles window/widget/UI drawing itself. So you can focus on your application and yet still can have one consistent gui on all supported platforms (Win32, Posix, BSD).


p.s. You might find it's syntax (which is close to scripting languages) and it's IDE a bit difficult at first (as I and a lot of people I know did), but it demonstrates what C++ is capable of and wonderful once you get used to it. It's documentation is not complete but the forums of it will probably have all the answers you'll need. Just give it a try and you won't regret it

Regards.

[GreyGeek]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

thanks for the replies...specially greygeek
i am going to make in house applications.
will download both java beans and qt.. and get hands on them..

Java offers features that some coders find useful. One of the best is garbage collection and automatic object deletion when an object goes out of scope. The NICE thing about QT4 is that when you create your own classes the first line of code you add in the class definition is "Q_OBJECT"

class homestead : public QMainWindow
{
// Qt objects contain code which is not standard C++ and would fail compilation. Adding Q_OBJECT
// at the beginning of a QMainWindow tells the MOC to precompile Qt "code" in order to generate
// standard C++ code, which is then compiled. Among the features that get added to the compiled
// code are garbage collection similar to Java's. Consult the QT Assistant for more about Q_OBJECT.

Q_OBJECT

// header files only contain declarations of objects, global vars,
// and object types. NO actual code or assignment statements go here!
// data types assigned below should have relevant include statements above.
// Only data TYPES are used in arguments to method declarations, NOT actual vars.
// If you add a function to homestead.cpp then add the declaration here.
public:
homestead(QWidget *parent = 0);

Q_OBJECT also adds garbage collection and other features that made Java popular.

However, if you are predisposed to using Java then there is a version of Qt4, Jambi, which is a Qt4 front end to the Java language. It gives you all the tools, in fact the same ones (Qt-Designer, Qt-Assistant, Qt-Linquist), that is offered for use with C++, but it is for the Java language. The Jambi documentation is here. Searching for "Jambi" in the repository will show four ADDTIONAL program to install, in addition to the Qt4 packages for C++ development, which will give you the ability to create Java applications using Qt4.

I also noticed that Nokia has added the LGPL license option to Qt4 toolkit. This will make it a more attractive toolkit for makers of proprietary applications who want to add their proprietary libraries to GPL Qt4 applications without having to give their code to the end user. (That is why the LGPL is called the "Lessor General Public License -- users have LESS freedoms than those which the GPL gives.)

I tried several GUI RAD IDE's with Java, both commercial and open source. I switched to Qt4 & C++ because I found I could develop applications faster with them than with any Java front end. This was before Jambi, which I never used.

The thing I liked about Qt4/C++ was that I could use Kate & Kdbg in Linux to develop, and compile with gcc in a Kate CLI pandel, using the classical development paradigm. I had started Qt/C++ with Qt3, but its Qt-Designer was also a GUI IDE (I won't use RAD when refering to it because it was NOT RAD), but trying to add your own classes, dialogs, libraries, etc., was such a monumental pain that I was in the process of looking for another tool when Qt4 came out. It changed everything.

A side note: I read yesterday that de Icaza/Novell/Microsoft are releasing the Monodevelop tool under the LGPL, removing ALL GPL code from it. One can get a GPL version of Qt4 (C++/Java), or an LGPL version. So, there is no advantage for commercial interests to use Monodevelop & MONO and hence no reason to contaminate the KDE4 desktop with Microsoft API.

[sithlord48]

Re: what's equivalent to microsoft visual studio in open/free source?

So, there is no advantage for commercial interests to use Monodevelop & MONO and hence no reason to contaminate the KDE4 desktop with Microsoft API.

i know any GUI programs i make will be done in QT. there is no reason for me to use mono. why would i want my program dependant on 1 line of microsoft code.