[CLUE-Tech] Qt/Java developers?

[Dan Harris]

My company is soon going to be rewriting one of our oldest applications.  It's 
currently written in VB but due to the fact that it only runs on Windows and 
I am not at all impressed with .NET, I will be selecting a new environment.  
I'd really like to keep the cross-platform options open as I honestly believe 
supporting X will be a smart move in the future.

My two best options seem to be C++ with Qt libs or Java.  I have looked at 
wxWindows also, but it really looks unpolished.  The widgets remind me of old 
Windows 3.1 widgets.  This app is VERY GUI-intensive and will need all the 
bells and whistles (tooltips, individual cell fonts in grids, wizards, 
graphics, etc).  From my experience with KDE ( I love KDE, even though it is 
bloated ), the Qt widgets are very, very cool!  The primary target platform ( 
for now ) is Win32.  It seems that if I use Qt I can satisfy this 
requirement, but easily compile it for X also... 

On the Java side, I see some very good UI designers and IDE's.  My main 
concern with Java is the speed of the user interface.  I'm not sure if Java 
or the coder is to blame , but it seems that every Java app I've used has a 
'clunky' look and feel to it, and the interface seems very slow to react, 
even on the fastest CPU's.  This app NEEDS to be very fast, so I'm not sure 
if Java will fit the bill or not.

So, here's my questions for all of you:

1) If I choose the Qt route, can I use KDevelop to write the code, but target 
the win32 platform easily?  Or should I develop on Win32 if I plan to target 
Win32.

2) What kind of DB support does Qt have?  The VB app uses Jet (Access) for a 
very small database.   I don't need enterprise RDBMS connectivity, just 
something to store simple rows.

3) What kind of DB support does Java have?  I know about JDBC, but I want 
something small that can ship with the app.  Again, I don't need Oracle 
support, just something quick to save some simple data.

4) How robust is the widget set in Qt?  Does it have all the things I'd expect 
in an MFC-based environment?  

5) is my perceived speed penalty in Java accurate?  Or have I just seen 
poorly/non optimized apps?

Thanks for any responses.  These are the type of questions that you can't 
really "google" for :-)

-Dan