So you want to write an “app” (2025)

I wish you had tried C# with WinForms which is still has the best GUI development tooling in Visual Studio.

I did something similar. I’m not a developer, but I use programming as a problem solving tool, and have written little apps for limited uses such as controlling a fixture in the factory — stuff that the devs won’t touch. My first language was BASIC on a mainframe, before I had access to a microcomputer.

I was getting sick of Visual Basic and Excel, and besides, my VB license was more than a decade old. So I went “language shopping” by trying out the same two tasks in a whole bunch of languages. And I also let myself be influenced by online discussions, blogs, etc. Between computers at work and at home, I tried out each language on both Windows and Linux. One of the tasks was computational and graphical, the other was controlling a widget connected to USB.

I ended up with Python, and have been loyal to it for 13+ years. Did I make the best choice? I can drum up a list of pro’s and con’s, but it would be based on hindsight.

When I need desktop app for my personal needs, I'm still writing them in Lazarus (text editor, git client, music player, spreadsheet, image cropper, various oddball one off desktop apps). It works on Linux and windows. If it really doesn't need to be desktop (typically visual apps that works on different files in different local dirs, or opening it in browser would be awkward) then I make browser app or extension in vanilla js. If it can be both desktop or browser, I chose browser most of the time, Lazarus is not exactly pinnacle of bug free apps.

> I wanted to get a personal "feel" for what the "new developer experience" is actually like across all of the current platforms...

I don't really understand what this means. Without explaining that, the rest of this blog post is just rambling notes about developer ergonomics. Of all the things to focus on, that's going to be by far the lowest priority in app dev.

Maybe I'm just too young to have ever experienced the kind of stability expected here. My opinions of tools are based on what they are capable of doing and how well it lines up with what I expect them to do. That's my definition of "feel" as an app dev. I don't care if the interface is stable. I want the capabilities to be stable. To make an analogy, when I buy a new work truck I care more about the specs and not the stuff on the dashboard.

> ... if you don't resort to web tech such as Electron

And that's precisely why everything is now a web app for over a decade, and why W3C standards and big tech bureaucracy won out.

Now, make a web app and compare the effort and tooling.