CppCon 2015

The C++ language evolved significantly in the recent past, and so did many frameworks and libraries in the big ecosystem surrounding it.

For twenty years now, Qt is being used on a multitude of platforms to create native looking, compelling graphical user interfaces.

It offers C++ libraries and tools for building desktop, mobile and embedded applications. Qt gives engineers APIs for developing using two dimensional controls, integrating 3D using OpenGL, embedding web content, as well as a new declarative domain-specific language called QML, which is extensible using C++. Qt is also much more than a UI toolkit and provides a multitude of helper libraries for various use-cases, such as localization, database access, XML and JSON parsing and much more.

During this talk, I will give an introduction to Qt and present its capabilities in how it can be utilized to write modern UIs using C++, both in 2D as well as 3D. Additionally, I will show how some of its features, like the integrated web engine or QML, can be leveraged to go beyond C++. While at it, I hope to clear up some outdated misconceptions about Qt and its relationship to standard C++ and the STL as well as Boost and other libraries.

Finally, I will present the KDE Frameworks, an open source collection of high quality, cross platform Qt libraries that are being used by the KDE Software Collection. KDE frameworks are to Qt as Boost is to the STL. Recent development makes it simpler than ever to use these libraries in external applications.