What KDE has going for it...

[aysiu]

I'm starting two threads--one for the good things about Gnome, another for the good things about KDE. Please do not bash the other desktop environment. Put only positive things. Thanks.

What I love about KDE...

Change numlock settings easily by checking the appropriate box
Complete panel transparency
Easy editing of the entire KMenu
Most frequently/recently used applications in KMenu

[NeoChaosX]

Native support of different wallpapers for each desktop.
Customization of just about *everything* about the DE
K3b
Konqueror's ability to embed certain file types rather than open them in a seperate program.

[benplaut]

i really like the customization, but the stability kinda lacks, and the speed is a bit behind gnome (but it's alot better in 3.5!)

[Knomefan]

kparts
kio_slaves
speed

[Arktis]

-Many more different options to customize and change the way to use it
-A lot more themes available
-A lot more kde specific apps available

[GeneralZod]

All the good ones are taken :(

From a programmer's point of view (and so less directly beneficial to the end user):

- Rich, surprisingly well-organised (not perfect, but damn good!), properly object-oriented, C++ API.

The richness of the API and the fact that nearly all KDE apps make use of it to the full do lead into the following, more tangible, benefits though:

- Excellent integration and consistency between apps.

[prizrak]

Definetly customizing features
Seemed faster than Gnome on my laptop

[-Rick-]

KDE rocks...

* You can customize like everything
* Preview and automaticly download and install new wallpapers
* Konqueror: Browse archives/smb shares/ssh servers/ftp servers and view info and man pages. Webbrowsing is also quite fast, usage of tabs and being able to copy files from for example a tar'ed file to a webserver via ssh also rocks :)
* Kopete: Displays custom smilies and avatars, new version also supports webcam
* Konsole: Loads fast, has tabs, supports copy & paste
* Kicker: KSysGuard is nice for monitoring stuff like CPU or network traffic, easy way to change keyboard layout(just one click), scrolling on the clock will change timezone
* KDevelop: Easy debugging, lots of templates for new projects, integration of GUI designer.
* Easy way to enable numlock on start.
* ARTS: Although in my experience it isn't as nice on linux, its a good alternative for hw mixing on FreeBSD.
* Good menu editor
* Easy way to configure printer and samba
* IMO lots of good 3th party apps are made for qt/kde: klibido(for binary files on newsservers), amaroK, Opera, Filelight, k3b
* Easy way for adding startup scripts
* KParts: Integration rocks :)
* KAlarm: incase I forgot something to do :P
* etc etc....

Yes I like lots of features :)

[asimon]

Something not already mentioned: KDE has a good API documentation (and especially the Qt docu is excellent) and also some nice tutorials and howtos. This is very important for novice developers to get a start into kde hacking.

[Adrian]

The most important thing for me is QT. I find it (relatively) easy, structured, well-documented and very powerful. Also, it's fun to use and lets me use my programs on other platforms. I've tried other toolkits but always come back to QT.

I also like how easy it is to customize KDE.

[ad noiseam]

Applications that work fine out of the box and are important for me:
-Knoda
-Amarok
-K3b

The ability to configure a lot of things without having to use the console, biving to everybody a lot of options to make the desktop exactly what the user wants.

[poofyhairguy]

I love K3B.

I like Kwin more than Metacity.

Kompose is the best Expose copy around (I almost want to pay someone to finish developing Skippy XD)

Amarok's lyrics grab is neat

Kwifi has no equivalent in Gnome thats as good yet.

Cool you can have a Universal Menubar.

Even though its harder to use, Superkaramba has many advantages of gdesklets.

Built in GUI for Kwin compositor

For me it can run with less RAM better (but needs more CPU)

Is easier to make look just like OSX to trick your friends

Is easier to make look just like Windows to trick your friends

[ninotob]

Quanta -- in particular, variable completion (start typing and a select box shows up with the variables you've already named, helps me tremendously in reducing typos).

Mind you, I'm not a true programmer -- I just putz around with php and mysql.

And as I mentioned before, although this is more an X thing so equally applicable to gnome or kde, and in IMO, no DE is truly good without them:

1. middle-click paste (2 buffers reduces page switching, mcp is super fast in use).
2. sloppy mouse focus (scroll background without losing focus on foreground window).

[curuxz]

I love KDE

Great for coding and multimonitor systems to make development enviroments. I sit at a desk with my main pc and laptop infront of me 3 screens, a graphics tablet, scanner and printer, and in kde i know how to use all of it together perfectly, there is no drop between apps. Its fast, intergrated and clean, how linux should be :D