So you want to write a GUI framework

There are a handful of technical blog posts in my bookmarks that made me go oh, I never thought of it that way when I first read them.I'm talking about posts like Parse, don't validate, Text Editing Hates You Too, Choose Boring Technology, or Making illegal states unrepresentable. I consider these required reading for any working programmer.To me, Colin Rofls' So you want to write a GUI framework falls into the same category.Before reading this post, I'd never considered how much work goes into building a GUI framework. There's a reason even trillion-dollar megacorporations use web technologies to build their apps, ship buggy frameworks year after year, or drop support for platforms with no concern for their users.Building a brand-new GUI framework in 2026 is a long slog, and you don't get to reap the fruits of your labor until you've solved every single problem on Colin's list.Colin writes: Regardless of the specifics, there is one major dividing line to recognize, and this is…