When comparing Qt / C++ vs Gambas, the Slant community recommends Gambas for most people. In the question“What are the best languages to write a desktop Linux application in?” Gambas is ranked 1st while Qt / C++ is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Gambas is:
You can't find such a level of easy GUI development in any other language on the Linux platform.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Good documentation
Professional, thorough documentation with examples, available either in a web browser or in the stand-alone desktop client called assistant.
Pro Portable
Linux, BSD, Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Blackberry ... Qt has 'em all.
Pro Global community
The community behind Qt is both massive and approachable. Digia (also owners) are joined by the likes of Intel, KDAB, ICS, Canonical and numerous others in sponsoring development, while communities such as KDE also contribute significantly. Forums are active, mailing lists are open, irc channels chatting, git repositories well managed. Answers to questions are usually minutes away.
Pro QML
QML is "HTML5 done right": a declarative language that integrates beautifully with C++ code when necessary and exposes the power of the GPU ... simply the best way to create a modern GUI in terms of effort and results.
Pro LGPL license
Pro Open Source
Qt is licensed under a OSS license through a dual-license policy.
Pro Complete IDE for GUI development
You can't find such a level of easy GUI development in any other language on the Linux platform.
Pro Constantly updated
New features and bug fixes along with performance enhancements.
Pro Easy to get started for someone familiar with VB on Windows
Pro Complete application development suite
Supports GTK and QT along with web. Built in Form building with JIT speed. If you are developing an application targeting Linux only give this a look.
Pro Fast to write apps
Pro Git integration
Integration with GIT in IDE and easy to distribute apps as source package with export as .tar.gz.
Pro Enhanced with a new test suite
Pro Runs on Windows 10 WSL2 environment, reported successful compilation on MacOS
Cons
Con Not free/expensive
Free version is limited and prohibitive.
Con Not cross platform
Con The documentation is not the best
Con May have trouble interfacing to C code structs
Managed struct objects in Gambas makes it harder to use with C code structs.
Con Difficult to satisfy runtime requirements
Runtime requirements to run applications written in Gambas are not always easy to satisfy (that is, without installing the whole development environment).