Can't Quit Qt

I’ve been dorking around with DeskBlocks lately, trying to find a way to get things to build & run within OS X. My ODE references were already many versions behind and the physics codebase is in need of an overhaul. Looming overhead was also the issue that Nokia was not entirely dedicated to the Qt4 platform that DeskBlocks is built upon, so I started to debate if I should find a new framework to build DeskBlocks within. I was pretty down on Nokia’s acquisition of Trolltech back in January of 2008, although it kinda made sense for the maemo platform. Still, with Nokia going all-in for Windows Phone it seemed like maemo and Qt was heading for the dustbin.

Sure enough, last week Nokia announced it was selling off Qt to Digia Oyj, even reportedly taking a significant loss in the process. Digia had already been running Qt licensing since 2011, so it’s not a huge surprise for it to take over the whole kit and kaboodle.

I’m of the mindset that this could potentially be a very good thing for Qt. I’ve seen Candyland get paved over so many times in the past decade, with big industries wrecking my favorite technologies over and over again. Going smaller may make things more agile - and it seems like many in the Linux community might agree. In a very smart move, Digia has already written an open letter to the KDE community emphasizing their commitment to Qt going forward. If they actually follow through on this dedication to the ecosystem, this could be a huge win for Digia Oyj.

Finland wins yet again.

Where Are the Java Physics APIs?

If I'm going to try and port Deskblocks to Java then I'll need to find a native Java physics API. If my only choices are native libraries then it makes more sense just to stick to Qt 4 - I'd rather keep this entirely in the "compile once run anywhere domain." Managing native libraries with wrappers functions is just a pain in the butt.

I was surprised to see slim pickins for physics API. For 2D physics I just found Phys2D and for 3D physics I found JBullet, a port of the Bullet physics API. Both seem to be great projects, and both seem to be currently active. Indeed, I'll probably give Phys2D a try and see if I can use it. I guess I just expected an ODE port by now.