The basic view of KDE for a KDE developer is schematized in the following diagram:

KDE is written in C++ and the KDE Project is committed to object- oriented development. We believe the efficiency and re-usability of KDE components afforded by its object-oriented design is key to the success of the projects.

KDE provides an application development framework similar to Microsoft's MFC/Com/activeX, allowing for rapid application development, and to leverage existing components and technologies.

KDE applications instantiate a KApplication object and derive from KMainWindow. A KDE application constructed this way automatically conforms to KDE standards.