Common Unification Needed
In recent years, I thought about how all these different toolkits might be better off if they shared a lower-level API of common operations which [mostly] all of the toolkits do under the hood. This would allow better interoperability between applications written to use different UI libraries. So a Qt based app would work transparently in a Gtk based desktop, or vice-versa. They would all so copy/paste the same way, do drag-and-drop the same way, content handling/launching the save way. Then developers could deal with their UI style and top level interface and share the effort of maintaining the common API code. At first, such an effort would just standardize the common API/features, keeping each toolkit's underlying implementation and slowing transitioning parts to shared code.
The benefits of doing this (assuming it was possible):
- Better cross-compatibility between software using differing toolkits.
- Less code duplication (of function) across toolkits.
- Easier to create new toolkits without having to reinvent everything (or fork/depending on another toolkit). Thus, more chance of innovation,
Of course, this seems unlikely to ever happen. Maybe if a couple well-used projects were willing to convert, others might follow, but still a big IF.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
