Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1999 04:53:33 +0200
From: Stefan Heidrich <sheidric@rz.uni-potsdam.de>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: KDevelop 1.0 Beta1 Press Release

KDevelop 1.0 - The KDE Development Environment

The KDevelop Team is proud to announce the availability of the KDevelop
Integrated Development Environment for Unix Systems, version 1.0 Beta 1.


KDevelop can be found at http://www.kdevelop.org  and will as well be
included in the next KDE release.

Project description:

1. Introduction

1.1 The Team

The KDevelop Project, started in summer of 1998, aims to provide
developers with a good, stable and useful environment that can compete
with modern graphical software development tools. Since the beginning of
the
development, the team has grown from three members of the core team to
seven code writers and a translation team in which another 12-15 people
contribute their work as well.

1.2 Intention

The first reason why KDevelop was created was the fact that
although Unix systems provide the user with a good and stable
environment, including the X Window System.  But it lacks a modern,
competitive solution for application development that will make users of

the dark side of power think it's time to contribute to another world.

Whereas hard-core Unix developers state that Emacs and vi are the
ultimate solution, KDE provides developers a complete application
framework together with the Qt library.  The fact that Qt is also
available for commercial development, this release will also get the
interest of commercial developers.  Therefore the KDevelop project wants

to:

a) provide a useful code-writing environment.
b) simplify the use of standard development tools such as autoconf and
automake.
c) offer a RAD tool by a graphical dialog editor that reduces GUI design

cycles.
d) give developers direct, simple access to documentation written
by the team as well as by third parties, including the KDE and Qt API.

2. Overview

The KDevelop IDE offers functionality for the following parts of C/C++
application development:

a) a wizard-based project generator that builds configurable frameworks
for various type of application
b) a coding environment, which includes:
- a syntax-highlighting editor
- a class browser and viewer
- various file viewers
c) a documentation system with direct access to HTML-formatted
documentation including five handbooks for KDE and Qt development,
along with fast search functionalities
d) a dialog editor that allows for rapid construction of user interfaces

embedded into the development environment completely
e) works with the most needed programs automatically to edit files by
mime-type, such as KIconedit or KDbg
f) CVS support for project development
g) support for easy internationalization of projects
h) internationalized into 10 languages (application; documentation only
available in English)
i) many additional features such as auto-saving, command line passing
etc.

This enables programmers to reduce development cycles to a minimum
while at the same time offering the flexibility to work as they would
like.

We would like to mention that although KDevelop requires KDE and Qt to
work, you can as well use it for any other C++ project; it is designed
primarily as a C/C++ development environment. Its origin nevertheless
has been
based on support for KDE/Qt application design.

3. Why using KDevelop IS an effort

The question is - do I want to use KDevelop for my application?  Or do
I really want to remain with black and white, text only?

Every developer will ask if KDevelop can be better than Emacs, better
than MS Visual Studio, better than Borland.  The fact that it provides a

complete, user friendly interface to simple application development most

often steps back.

But the KDevelop Team does not think we have to step back behind the
long-term development of for example, Emacs. KDevelop actually IS being
developed with beta versions in our own interest.  Stability is always
the main goal. You can expect KDevelop to do what you want it to do,
whenever you want to.  And it will stay stable, as much as possible with

user reports of bugs during development releases.

The features were designed based on the need of them from our own
experience.  The programmer can expect that his environment interacts
with him intuitively, in a fast yet friendly way.

All features are well documented.  As well, we provide a whole set of
handbooks that will give those new to KDE development a seamless start
from whatever environment they may come- GNOME, wxWindows or Motif.

We hope that our contribution to the free software market will make more

users and programmers realize that they have another choice.

The KDevelop Team