…but I mean, that’s an opinion that is not falsifiable.
If the author disagrees, that’s up to them right?
I agree with the author too; after using xaml, my taste for declarative UIs is limited.
Here’s something that is falsifiable: what is possible using declarative UIs is a strict subset of what is possible using imperative code.
If your declarative config is Turing complete, it’s a DSL; ie. a programming language, not declarative and you’re in “not invented here” land.
If not, the possibilities for it are a subset.
That’s provable; so, if you’re worried that your UI is too complex to easily represent with the existing declarative structure, go for code.
What if you need dynamic layouts? What if your layouts are determined at runtime by dynamically loaded plug-ins? What if your layout needs to generated differently based on themes, or screen sizes? Who knows?
It seems entirely reasonable.
The same goes for other declarative solutions and projects. Eg. Terraform.
I mean, the author literally says a) it’s a trade off for velocity, b) they’re more concerned with performance, c) the implementation in slint is not complete and d) they’re considering writing a very very low level UI library to get what they want.
…maybe, they just want different things to what you’re offering?
It doesn’t mean they’re “wrong”.