[pedrocr]

> want the result of that hard work to be retained in the framebuffer unless it absolutely needs to change

I think immediate mode GUI libraries can get around this issue by still caching and reusing between frames. Conrod does this by still having the state in the background although you are programming to an immediate mode API:

https://docs.rs/conrod/latest/conrod/guide/chapter_1/index.h...

[sly010]

That's a bit antithetical, given the other side of the debate being Retained Mode GUIs.

That said it's a good middle ground. Use whatever API you prefer over a well optimized implementation.