[General] Introducing Lively for Qt

[Antero Taivalsaari]

Happy Easter,

I'd like to introduce Lively Kernel's sister project,
Lively for Qt:

  http://lively.cs.tut.fi/qt

This is work that we have been doing in collaboration with
the Web Programming Research Team at the Tampere
University of Technology, Finland.

  http://lively.cs.tut.fi

Background:

Qt (http://www.qtsoftware.com/) is a mature, well-documented
cross-platform application development framework and platform
that has been under development since the early 1990s.
Qt supports a rich set of APIs, widgets and tools that
run on most commercial software platforms.  While Qt is
intended primarily for C++ developers, Qt API bindings
are available also for developing applications in JavaScript
and Java.  Interestingly, Qt libraries include a complete
web browser (based on WebKit), as well as a fully functional
JavaScript engine and debugger.

Trolltech, the company developing Qt, was acquired by Nokia
in 2008.  Nokia is currently in the process of making the
Qt APIs available on their mobile phone platforms.
Given Nokia's market share, this will make Qt a very
interesting target platform for mobile applications,
mobile web applications and mashups.

Lively for Qt:

Lively for Qt is a new implementation of the Lively Kernel
in which the "kernel" parts of Lively have been replaced by
functionality offered by Qt.  Lively for Qt inherits most of
the basic functionality (such as the implementation of widgets,
layout management, core event handling and core JavaScript support)
from Qt.  Most of the development work is performed using the APIs
offered by the Qt platform (http://doc.trolltech.com/4.5/index.html).
All the existing Qt widgets can be used in applications.
The system can run both natively (e.g., as a desktop/phonetop
environment) as well as in a web browser using a browser plugin.

Since Lively for Qt has been designed to complement Qt, it is
not strictly API-compatible with the Lively Kernel.  However,
the system is definitely compatible in spirit in that it retains
the exceptionally interactive nature (the "liveliness") of the
Lively Kernel, e.g., by allowing the user interface and
application source code to be edited on the fly.  A number of
tools such as a JavaScript code evaluator, object inspector
and a complete JavaScript debugger are included.

Sample applications and mashups:

The students at the Tampere University of Technology
have built various mashup demo applications that run
on top of Lively for Qt.

  http://lively.cs.tut.fi/qt/applications.html

Status:

Like the Lively Kernel, Lively for Qt is a research
artifact that is still under development.  As usual,
we'd be eager to hear your feedback and receive
suggestions (and possible help) for further
development of the system.

Best regards,

-- Antero