Qt 5.9.4 Released With Close To 200 Bug Fixes

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Qt 5.9.4 Released With Close To 200 Bug Fixes

With Qt 5.9 being a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, it's seeing frequent bug-fix releases and today marks the latest point release...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Qt-5.9.4-Released

[GdeR]

So, I'll sum it up for you... versions 5.9.1 and 5.9.2 delivered something close to 1000 bug fixes in total. Version 5.9.3 shipped with over 100 bug fixes and version 5.9.4 with nearly 200. That makes about 1300 bugs fixed since the first release, aka version 5.9 or 5.9.0. Now, what are the Qt people saying: they're good developers, good at catching bugs, or they have just admitted to releasing crappy and buggy software every once in a while? With over 1300 bugs floating in their code.. version 5.9.0 was basically garbage released to the public. That said, I love Qt.

[emcek]

So, I'll sum it up for you... versions 5.9.1 and 5.9.2 delivered something close to 1000 bug fixes in total. Version 5.9.3 shipped with over 100 bug fixes and version 5.9.4 with nearly 200. That makes about 1300 bugs fixed since the first release, aka version 5.9 or 5.9.0. Now, what are the Qt people saying: they're good developers, good at catching bugs, or they have just admitted to release crappy and buggy software every once in a while? With over 1300 bugs floating in their code.. version 5.9.0 was basically garbage released to the public. That said, I love Qt.

c'mon... most software today has same problem (imho due to CI/CD and push release schedule really tight), but you can can see internal bugzillas.... users do't really want just bug fix release as main release they want new features... I Qt will sai for next year ww will just fix issues... they left behind, user will compelling.. that others competitors done this and then.... and optionally they will migrate to other libs and frameworks.... It' in human nature....

[RealNC]

Well, their releases also add bugs, they don't just fix them. One of my applications broke due to 5.9.4.

[Nth_man]

The more that a system achieves... the bigger is its bug list. Smaller systems have fewer bug reports. Every software library has bug reports. However, not all the bugs have the same importance, some bugs affect less people, etc. So the first bugs that you go solving are the most important ones, the ones that affect more people.

[iamsergio]

So, I'll sum it up for you... versions 5.9.1 and 5.9.2 delivered something close to 1000 bug fixes in total. Version 5.9.3 shipped with over 100 bug fixes and version 5.9.4 with nearly 200. That makes about 1300 bugs fixed since the first release, aka version 5.9 or 5.9.0. Now, what are the Qt people saying: they're good developers, good at catching bugs, or they have just admitted to release crappy and buggy software every once in a while? With over 1300 bugs floating in their code.. version 5.9.0 was basically garbage released to the public. That said, I love Qt.

In this case 1300 bugs doesn't mean it's crappy, it just means there were many features developed, which imply bugs.
I rather have many features with bugs I can fix than a slower paced development...

[Jabberwocky]

So, I'll sum it up for you... versions 5.9.1 and 5.9.2 delivered something close to 1000 bug fixes in total. Version 5.9.3 shipped with over 100 bug fixes and version 5.9.4 with nearly 200. That makes about 1300 bugs fixed since the first release, aka version 5.9 or 5.9.0. Now, what are the Qt people saying: they're good developers, good at catching bugs, or they have just admitted to release crappy and buggy software every once in a while? With over 1300 bugs floating in their code.. version 5.9.0 was basically garbage released to the public. That said, I love Qt.

Thanks for the summary. Whatever the reason for that amount of bugs are, I'm glad they are fixing it. For me though Qt is currently love/hate. I love this point where the project is at now. I hate the breaking changes on top of breaking changes steps it took to get here. That said, I still think it's the best out there based on the points below.

A good GUI library IMO has the following: Crossplatform support, good performance using low resources, stability, features* and good looking design.
*Advanced and basic features like 3D support and robust open/save dialog that as easy to use "new folder/browse/show hidden files".

Qt has made it possible for me to use VLC, OBS, Wireshark, Battle.net, Steam, Teamspeak, VirtualBox, Telegram, OpenShot2 and Robomongo on multiple operating systems. Most of these apps have complex functionality and from a UX point of view I really enjoyed using these applications. I have not had the same satisfaction from any other graphical library.

This might be obvious to a lot of people, Qt does not automatically give your application good UX and robust crossplatform support. It is still up to the developers/designers to create a good application. The pattern I see based on my experience is "good crossplatform applications" generally use Qt, for the desktop anyway. It looks like

Runners up
GTK: Gimp(Over all good experience), Transmission(Works well, but does not follow good UX principals) or Dia(Used it a few years back, but liked it)
wxWidgets: Audacity (Love this App!)
Electron: Etcher (works well), VS Code (awesome! Uses too much RAM IMO), Slack (uses way too much RAM and loads slowly regardless of network speed).
Java SWING/AWT: Eclipse/IntelliJ IDEA (not going down this rabbit hole)

What other software is out there with complex UI, good crossplatform support and runs butter smooth on lowend hardware? What GUI libraries were used? I'm genuinely curious.

[carewolf]

In this case 1300 bugs doesn't mean it's crappy, it just means there were many features developed, which imply bugs.
I rather have many features with bugs I can fix than a slower paced development...

Also note that many of the bugs that gets fixed in x.x.1 releases are fixing support for obscure platforms and configurations so they work as well as the primary platforms. Qt runs on a lot of platforms and have many users using it in obscure way, but corner-case configurations often break in x.x.0 releases because they can't all be tested.

If you are interested in what kind of things got fixed in 5.9.4, see here http://code.qt.io/cgit/qt/qtbase.git/log/?h=5.9.4

[eydee]

QSystrayIcon is still broken on LXDE, because f...ck LXDE users, apparently.

[Charlie68]

So, I'll sum it up for you... versions 5.9.1 and 5.9.2 delivered something close to 1000 bug fixes in total. Version 5.9.3 shipped with over 100 bug fixes and version 5.9.4 with nearly 200. That makes about 1300 bugs fixed since the first release, aka version 5.9 or 5.9.0. Now, what are the Qt people saying: they're good developers, good at catching bugs, or they have just admitted to releasing crappy and buggy software every once in a while? With over 1300 bugs floating in their code.. version 5.9.0 was basically garbage released to the public. That said, I love Qt.

There is no bug-free software, many bugs only occur under certain conditions and it is impossible to predict them. There are an infinite number of software-hardware situations ... for example I did not notice any bugs! Qt is cross-platform so it is easy to have a lot of bugs ... the important thing is that once they are discovered they are resolved.