Advise is sought for practical tips on multi-platform QT-development

[QPlace]

I will really appreciate any advice or sharing an experience about multiplatform QT development. I am at the stage of selecting a laptop where I can develop on windows, mac and linux. Currently I am only developing against Windows. MacBookPro is an obvious choice but - I a)never did multiplatform development b) never used Macs :). I found some links saying that Leopard can be installed on Dell, but it appears that it is a non-apple patched distribution.

So the questions I have really are:
1. Advise on a laptop for such a development
2. Advise on a "proper" way, tips, methodology etc to practically do a multi-platform development (my primary OS is Windows, but I am open to change it if another OS should be the primary in order to simplify the work)

[marcel]

1. Advise on a laptop for such a development

Buy a MacBook. You will be able to install Windows XP/Vista using BootCamp. This is an official feature.


2. Advise on a "proper" way, tips, methodology etc to practically do a multi-platform development (my primary OS is Windows, but I am open to change it if another OS should be the primary in order to simplify the work)

Use only GCC based compilers on all platforms, if possible.

[Brandybuck]

Use only GCC based compilers on all platforms, if possible.
On Linux/Unix and Mac, this is already the default. On Windows you can use MinGW G++.

p.s. But just to be contrary and obstinate, there is much value in using different compilers. Use Visual Studio on Windows (but stick with commandline qmake/nmake) if you already have it. The benefit is that with "lowest common denominator" C++, you will not have hassles whenever you do have to use a different compiler (or newer compiler release). It also helps to uncover subtle errors that one compiler alone might not flag.

[QPlace]

I am unsure about the right way to organize such a development on a single machine. Should I have a partition which is recognizable by all OSes, keep sources and output on this partition and then, compiling on one OS switch to others and compile again? May be someone can share methods/tips for such a development?

[wysota]

In my opinion it is best to have a code repository (can be remote) managed by some revision control system and a separate working copy for each platform. This way you won't have problems with stale intermediate files from other platforms and at the same time your code will always be synced if you remember to commit all changes to the repository.

[QPlace]

Yes, source repository is a given. I am curious - you are saying that sequential work is the one preferred, i.e. check out sources, develop on one platform, then check sources in, switch to another platform, check out, build etc. I am wondering - is there a setup on a single machine where I can develop on a one platform and then send a "signal" to other platforms to start building from the same code repository, storing intermediates and targets in OS-specific directories.

[wysota]

If you use proper tools then it's only a matter of asking it to perform an update of your working copy.