[bayonetz]

Fair enough. I just get sad knowing what I'm missing. I've worked with a bunch of desktop GUI builder IDEs (Visual Basic, .Net WinForms, WPF/XAML, and Qt) and I've seen the immense power they have in terms of developer productivity and application performance. Something like XAML is especially interesting because it brings the styling and responsiveness of HTML/CSS to the GUI builder paradigm. I started off with them and then have slowly transitioned to working entirely with web technologies (PHP, Rails, Angular, React, you name it). Not without reluctance for sure! It's a Faustian bargain to me -- trading off overall inferior technology and developer experience for the sheer reach and ease of deployment of the web. It's nuts to me to design a visual thing like a UI by writing lines of code. The GUI builders of yore really nailed this by allowing you to design something visual using a visual modality (drag n drop, realtime layout designers, etc.). I try to explain this folks who've only ever developed for web and usually their eyes glaze over. They can't seem to (or have an incentive not to?) appreciate the impedance mismatches and the fundamental trades being made with web user interfaces.