Comment by dagmx
5 hours ago
There are definitely languages that work well with UIs. I’m not sure how you can make that clear cut a statement?
C++ and Python map extremely well to Qt which is one of the predominant UI frameworks. ObjC maps really well to AppKit/UIKit. Anything small talk derived has been a pretty strong fit for UI work
Just because new paradigms are made, doesn’t mean the old ones are inherently bad either.
> C++ and Python map extremely well to Qt which is one of the predominant UI frameworks
Qt used to be predominent, but it really cannot be said in 2026 given that there's probably two orders of magnitude between the number of React Apps and the number of Qt ones being made in this decade…
> Just because new paradigms are made, doesn’t mean the old ones are inherently bad either
Yet barely anyone uses the old ones anymore. Surely it must not be only because people like new and shiny things (React being more than a decade old at this point makes it far from “new and shiny” anyway).
> ObjC maps really well to AppKit/UIKit.
This example is particularly interesting given that Apple moved away from their old UI tech on favor of SwiftUI, which isn't OO-based.
1. I said “one of the predominant”, that there are other frameworks ahead of it doesn’t mean it’s not in the top set of UI frameworks. Especially for native apps and automotive / medical use cases.
2. I think you might be living in a bubble if you think “barely anyone uses them”. Qt still has massive use , entire industries are dependent on it.
3. This is a misunderstanding of SwiftUI. Many aspects of the underlying parts of SwiftUI are still AppKit/uikit based. It’s about declarative vs imperative, and about react style development. SwiftUI being better doesn’t mean that the old paradigms were inherently bad or unsuitable like you suggested
> Especially for native apps and automotive / medical use cases.
It used to be the case, but even those sectors made the move to web GUIs. Heck even the Windows start menu is an Electron app nowadays.
> 2. I think you might be living in a bubble if you think “barely anyone uses them”. Qt still has massive use , entire industries are dependent on it.
I'm not. I've worked in medical devices and train control systems, on projects that would have been Qt based a decade earlier but had moved to web UIs. I even have a friend working for a defense company who told me that the UI for their latest AA weapon system was built with web technologies! That even the most conservative industry out there has started migrating tells you all you need to know.
Qt is definitely in the “legacy technology” category at this point and has been for a while. That doesn't mean it's dead, like Cobol it won't die before the last system using it will, but it's still far less relevant than it used to be.
> SwiftUI being better doesn’t mean that the old paradigms were inherently bad or unsuitable like you suggested
I'm not saying they were unsuitable, but they definitely weren't good enough which is why the entire industry has moved to something else. (The said alternative is far from perfect either, though).