Someone will no doubt correct my hazy memory, but I wonder how much to blame was the fact that default QT apps were so ugly around the time that was the height of RAD, and QT was the only(?) well-supported cross-platform cross-DE gui framework at that time.
On windows you could RAD your way to a good looking windows application that looked and behaved like everything else. On linux, default behaviour was either ugly, or not very compatible, or heavily customised anyway, and that didn't change until much later with improvements to GTK.
For RAD, Delphi was filling a pretty big niche in its day, and it's still used in some companies local to me. I remember being told during an interview that it performs really well and it's kept up well enough with the changing times. I knew someone from University about 10 years ago that got her first Software job writing Delphi!
I think Microsoft coming out with XAML/WPF created too much complexity for most of the developers that were working with WinForms. Although the code had better separation from the interface, it also took quite a bit more effort to get an application up and running quickly. They took the "R" out of RAD, and then kind of put both WinForms and WPF on life support, while continuing to tout cross-platform on .NET Core without a first-party GUI platform. Now it just looks like Azure was always going to be the solution, to tie users into a platform they don't fully control.
I ran into all of this with the first few years of my career. Even after years, MAUI has struggled to gain traction and Avalonia has grown and is far more the de-facto choice for .NET cross-platform GUI. Both work collegues and myself have ran into XAML/WPF Styling horrors where it's all one giant aggregation/inheritance nightmare generated by Blend (and done by someone that didn't quite know what they were doing)
It always seemed to me that a lack of gentle “WPF for Windows Forms developers” documentation was more of a problem here than WPF itself, which no more enforces the separation of presentation and execution than Windows Forms does, it just gives you more and higher-level options for how code interacts with the layout.
> I'm shocked in general at the lack of open source Rapid Application Development software.
They exist:
- In particular in the 90s and 00s, Tcl/Tk was really magic for creating user interfaces for small applications under GNU/Linux.
- Lazarus attempts to be an open-source analogue to Delphi
- LibreOffice Base attempts to fill the same niche as Microsoft Access
- Historically, in the time of Gtk+ 1.x and 2.x Glade [1] was an editor for clicking together user interfaces. Well, development ceased, and under GNU/Linux there is no attitude of retaining backwards compatibility with applications/libraries that are not maintained anymore (but which might be business-critical).
- ...
But of course Rapid Application Development is much more popular in the business world which is (at least in many European countries) a rather Microsoft-centric environment. Additionally, the typical developer that uses Rapid Application Development is often a subject-matter expert in some department who also knows a little bit about programming (i.e. is not in deep love with programming), and not a programming expert who also knows about some other specialized topics that are important for the business.
On the other hand, the open source environment typically rather attracts people who really like programming.
If your into C++, there is U++ (Ultimate++), which is a fully featured RAD ide equivalent to Lazarus with the fastest compiler I've seen. It compiles to Win/Mac/Linux/BSD.
Nerds have vested interests (exposure/influence/status based on exclusivity of skill) to oppose letting ”the wrong people” create software, versus a company like Microsoft is the other way around because they get paid and get to further-entrench their platforms (but I repeat myself).
And/or too many people have internalized a feeling of “I am Very Smart because I know better than to ever try anything unique”, as exemplified by that awful xkcd ‘Standards’ learned-helplessness comic somebody will always rush to post in a discussion of any New Thing, and thus would never even dream of creating RAD tools whose entire premise is the creation of bespoke software.
Someone will no doubt correct my hazy memory, but I wonder how much to blame was the fact that default QT apps were so ugly around the time that was the height of RAD, and QT was the only(?) well-supported cross-platform cross-DE gui framework at that time.
On windows you could RAD your way to a good looking windows application that looked and behaved like everything else. On linux, default behaviour was either ugly, or not very compatible, or heavily customised anyway, and that didn't change until much later with improvements to GTK.
For RAD, Delphi was filling a pretty big niche in its day, and it's still used in some companies local to me. I remember being told during an interview that it performs really well and it's kept up well enough with the changing times. I knew someone from University about 10 years ago that got her first Software job writing Delphi!
I think Microsoft coming out with XAML/WPF created too much complexity for most of the developers that were working with WinForms. Although the code had better separation from the interface, it also took quite a bit more effort to get an application up and running quickly. They took the "R" out of RAD, and then kind of put both WinForms and WPF on life support, while continuing to tout cross-platform on .NET Core without a first-party GUI platform. Now it just looks like Azure was always going to be the solution, to tie users into a platform they don't fully control.
I ran into all of this with the first few years of my career. Even after years, MAUI has struggled to gain traction and Avalonia has grown and is far more the de-facto choice for .NET cross-platform GUI. Both work collegues and myself have ran into XAML/WPF Styling horrors where it's all one giant aggregation/inheritance nightmare generated by Blend (and done by someone that didn't quite know what they were doing)
It always seemed to me that a lack of gentle “WPF for Windows Forms developers” documentation was more of a problem here than WPF itself, which no more enforces the separation of presentation and execution than Windows Forms does, it just gives you more and higher-level options for how code interacts with the layout.
There was[0] Dabo, an attempt at a modern Visual Foxpro in Python https://dabo.leafe.com/
0: sort-of "is" rather than "was": https://blog.leafe.com/creativity-and-ai-models/
> I'm shocked in general at the lack of open source Rapid Application Development software.
They exist:
- In particular in the 90s and 00s, Tcl/Tk was really magic for creating user interfaces for small applications under GNU/Linux.
- Lazarus attempts to be an open-source analogue to Delphi
- LibreOffice Base attempts to fill the same niche as Microsoft Access
- Historically, in the time of Gtk+ 1.x and 2.x Glade [1] was an editor for clicking together user interfaces. Well, development ceased, and under GNU/Linux there is no attitude of retaining backwards compatibility with applications/libraries that are not maintained anymore (but which might be business-critical).
- ...
But of course Rapid Application Development is much more popular in the business world which is (at least in many European countries) a rather Microsoft-centric environment. Additionally, the typical developer that uses Rapid Application Development is often a subject-matter expert in some department who also knows a little bit about programming (i.e. is not in deep love with programming), and not a programming expert who also knows about some other specialized topics that are important for the business.
On the other hand, the open source environment typically rather attracts people who really like programming.
---
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glade_Interface_Designer
Probably because *nix programmers in general are the black coffee long beard RTFM type.
There have been shitloads of open source RADs. They do not generate much interest.
If your into C++, there is U++ (Ultimate++), which is a fully featured RAD ide equivalent to Lazarus with the fastest compiler I've seen. It compiles to Win/Mac/Linux/BSD.
Well, (F)OSS projects have never been known for great UI/UX (with some exceptions like Blender), so it doesn't surprise me much
Qt Quick and Qt Creator isn't RAD per se but I feel like it gets you close.
Nerds have vested interests (exposure/influence/status based on exclusivity of skill) to oppose letting ”the wrong people” create software, versus a company like Microsoft is the other way around because they get paid and get to further-entrench their platforms (but I repeat myself).
And/or too many people have internalized a feeling of “I am Very Smart because I know better than to ever try anything unique”, as exemplified by that awful xkcd ‘Standards’ learned-helplessness comic somebody will always rush to post in a discussion of any New Thing, and thus would never even dream of creating RAD tools whose entire premise is the creation of bespoke software.