One of the things I hate most about GUI toolkits is the layout system. They are so clunky and I always feel like I don't get to have my window laid out how I want. This is true with java (all of my school projects were absolute positioned), wxWidgets, gtk+ (i imagine -- i never got it to work), xul, etc.

Qt has changed my opinion. It's so simple to work with layouts. Even more simple (and in fact, quite amazing) is using layouts with QtDesigner. Every time I have a form, I click a layout button and magically it's exactly how I want. Well, not always exactly, but I know how to get it exactly how I want and it usually does not take long to get it so.

It's unfortunate that Qt is GPL, and from my understanding that means anything I write using Qt must also be GPL. But, I don't understand exactly how the PC-BSD folks managed to keep their stuff BSD-licensed. Any ideas?

I digress. The important thing is that I'm a very stubborn and picky developer and to find a piece of software that I find makes things easier and actually works how I want it to and expect it to -- well it's almost unheard of. Try Qt and QtDesigner.

Check it out

It's pretty handy. Check it out.

Unfortunately, it can't make me a better designer. I experimented with it for the last 10 minutes trying to think of a new layout for this site. I made a simple 3 column layout faster than I ever have before.

Then I tried to add some style. These were my exact thoughts:

"What about a nice green for the header?"
"What the hell? I need to stop trying to design stuff."

I don't get it...
I've worked with graphic designers and web designers for almost 5 years now.
My Sister has a degree in Illustration and is an awesome artist.
My mom can paint and draw.
Couldn't enough of that experience have rubbed off so that I might be able to choose a COLOR SCHEME FOR MY SITE???

If you do any sort of database programming, do yourself a favor and look at SQLAlchemy.

IMO, this is probably the greatest single piece of ORM/DB software I have ever used. Possibly the greatest overall. It answers every concern I've ever had with database programming. If you don't know Python, it's worth learning just to use SA.
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I've recently switched to jEdit in order to work on jQuery in the jBoss jEnvironment on the jJ platform!

Well, the part about switching to jEdit is true. I suddenly became annoyed with Notepad++ and Cream (I was using both), so I decided to try jEdit.

I'm pretty impressed so far. It's not terribly slow...it loads at about the same speed that Cream does, but is significantly less buggy. The plugins for jEdit are also handy.

We'll see what I think next week.