[ocornut]

I'm also not convinced by the value of single file especially for semi large libraries like Nuklear. Especially as you could #include the .c file just as well as the .h files if you need. That's as many lines as #define IMPLEMENTATION.

Nuklear was developed as multiple files and hastily merged at the last minute by its author before being tagged 1.0. I think it was a mistake especially as he copied the entire stb_xxx files inside. And unlike libraries like stb_image.h, if you want to use Nuklear you need to setup or copy a non-trivial backend anyway, so it's not a matter of include and ready-to-use.

(Dear ImGui which Nuklear is based on is 7 files including 4 headers as you know.)

To me the core value of those libs is that they are highly portable, designed to compile everywhere without any specific build system, and designed to be compiled from source code. Because they are designed as such, problems (such as error/warnings on some setup) are caught easily and fast.

Whereas for bigger libraries you either get the headache of binaries, either get the headache of figuring out their build systems and building from source which frequently fails. And as people don't frequently build themselves, portability problems aren't caught as often.