
Ask HN: Is it worth it to learn desktop GUI frameworks anymore? - rnovak
I don&#x27;t consider myself entirely noob-ish in software&#x2F;computer engineering. I&#x27;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.<p>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.<p>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 &quot;Cloud&quot; based software. (I consider myself at least semi-competent in Web development, I&#x27;ve been a key contributor on a couple big projects for the SaaS company I work for).<p>Last week though, I thought it would be a good idea to try building a C++ application using Qt for the presentation layer. I&#x27;ve used WPF, .NET, ObjC&#x2F;Cocoa, and JavaFX&#x2F;Java Swing to build graphical programs. After a week though, I&#x27;m not really very close to getting Qt linked together correctly with CMake.<p>I&#x27;m just wondering if I should even bother? Web seems like it&#x27;s dominating so much right now, that eventually desktop applications will be a thing of the past?<p>What are your personal thoughts on this, and should I even continue trying to improve my desktop GUI skills?
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EleventhSun
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.

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

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proyb2
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.

