So, I’ve recently been working with a tool (‘framework’, if you want to call it that) called TideSDK.
To put it simply, it bring the more common (of course it’s not like Web 2.0 created this abstraction) Web 2.0 3-Tier application model to desktop apps.
Disclaimer: I have been on a real web dev kick lately.
I think it’s just a no-brainer kind of way to make a beautiful app without having to dive head-first into Qt/GTK+. I made what I think is a relatively good looking bootstrap/jquery/jquery.layout enabled app (not so much functionality yet) and I am extremely pleased. the app looks fantastic, is very cross-platform compatible (see ), and as far as I can glean, adding functionality is a breeze (what the app will actually do is somewhat under revision at the moment).
I was really impressed with this tool, and look forward to writing apps with it in the future. It seems like a really great way to face this coming one-app-multiple-platforms world we’re living in.
Of course, there’s most likely a large speed decrease, but I think most apps can afford it, for a large simplicity upside.