Luckily I didn't upset anymore apple carts at Qt Developer Days in Munich, which means I got to hang around for the final day and catch a couple of interesting sessions.

One session was Eike Ziller's demonstration of "Project Greenhouse," a very nice IDE for cross-platform Qt development. Eike made it clear at the outset that Qt Software (formerly Trolltech) isn't trying to out Eclipse Eclipse, or out Visual Studio Visual Studio. (Qt is an Eclipse member, if I recall.) But what they Eike and team is doing with the IDE is providing a development environment to foster and support real cross-platform applications development. The IDE will likely go into Alpha within the next could of weeks, and be a real tool after the first of the year. If you are a Qt developer, you'll want it, I suspect. If your not, I suspect you'll still wanting to know what it is about. It has some nice features.

The second session I enjoyed was a talk that Martin Scherbaum of basysKorn presented as part of the "Qt for Embedded Linux" track. What I found most interesting are the "lesson learned" in project that involved translating real-world industrial controls into embedded widgets. I'll try to sum up.

1. Design. Find a designer who is able to understand software developers and development. A designer who has experience in technical design.

2. Usability. Be realistic about limitations. Always put function before "fanciness". There's always a trade-off between the two.

3. Implementation. Stick with standard platforms, in this case Qt. Don't get to customized.

4. Optimizations. Check on all possible different devices the software will run on. Don't make assumptions. Start your testing with the weakest device.

If you're interested in seeing the outcome of this project, check it out here .