> The underlying force there is the absence of one unified baseline set of APIs for writing desktop programs.
It's called the Common Desktop Environment.
It's called the Common Desktop Environment.
Any desktop program needs to be programmed against some API. In the case of Emacs, it's probably raw Xlib or a wrapper library on top of it.
The problem with that is that (a) your dependency on X11, which is obsolete and has many documented inadequacies, (b) the lack of a modern widget library and toolkit makes extra, unnecessary work for the programmer, and (c) the lack of a cohesive visual language between programs makes the experience worse for the user.
Toolkits like GTK and Qt solve all these problems. By avoiding them, you're just reinventing the wheel, poorly, every time.
So your point is that we should use older technology even when it's been surpassed by better alternatives?