[luigigr]

Hi guys,
I have to work on a university project, which consists in a C++ code and a GUI written in Qt, I'm then using Qt creator to build my project, so I thought... why not apply what I'm learning to dive into BB10 development?
But... I have yet to understand all the differences in the development environments. For a native development I should use Momentics, which is a customised version of Eclipse, right? So, where does Qt fit in all that? I'm a bit confused right now, please someone explain me. Thanks

[Thunderbuck]

As you say, Momentics is the actual development environment. It's the IDE that you can write all your code in. It's also possible to get a Cascades plugin for Eclipse, and you can also get a plugin for Visual Studio that allows you to write C/C++ code there if you want.

Qt is a programming language. Cascades is largely based on Qt, though it's something of a customization.

[luigigr]

Ok, so, if I'm getting it, Momentics it's the IDE. Cascades is the... "api set"? (like Cocoa Touch) and the language is C++ & customised Qt for the UI part? I'm on a Mac, so I'm fine with Momentics. Anyway, with a knowing of plain C++ and Qt would it be difficult to switch to BB10? I mean... Is Cascades a natural extension of the mentality I've gotten here?
Thank you for your anwer

[ljfong]

C++ is a general purpose programming language that was chosen specifically for BlackBerry 10 native development. You can use C++ to do programming on Windows too.

Qt is a C++ framework library that provides many features and convenient things that do not come out of the box with plain C++ and its standard library, such as, the ability to do runtime introspection, publisher-subscriber design pattern reification through signals and slots, convenient memory management, etc. Cascade is a UI programming language that happens to be used in conjunction with C++. HTML 5, XAML (for WPF) are similar.

Momentics is the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that gives you debugger, editor, syntax highlighting, code autocompletion, and such. You can certainly write all your code in Notepad or very simple text editor, compile, build and test your app without an IDE by simply using the tools on command line, but that is usually not recommended, as you deprive yourself of all the nice things that come with an IDE.

To use C++ effectively, you certainly need to understand object-oriented programming well, and preferably design patterns around object-oriented programming.