Whats holding ~100% D GUI back?

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

On Thursday, 28 November 2019 at 15:42:29 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> As an example of it, Windows 10 composition layer is basically 
> a thin wrapper around DirectX, exposing most of its features to 
> WinUI.

Well, you could've said that for Amiga too, but you do things 
differently for a UI than a game. Then again you do things 
differently for different types of graphics engines and hardware 
too, and that does change over time... so the argument is kinda 
moot from the get go.

Anyway, if you are building a portable UI toolkit for existing 
windowing systems you should not open the most expressive 
graphics context on all platforms. You should adopt to the 
platform (save resources, get better interop with native toolkits 
etc). AND be future proof. Meaning: be conservative. If you want 
to run on embedded slow monochrome LCDs, networked x-windows, 
os-x, windows... well, you won't get very far with a game engine.

Besides there is no way the D community can fully sustain a 
portable UI implemented on the hardware level anyway... Just use 
Skia conservatively and save yourself a few man years of design, 
development, porting, debugging and maintenance... and that is 
only for the lowest level.