LESSON: N E V E R Use code that can "stop working" until you pay ransom. N E V E R.
At this point, it's irrelevant, because the LLMs can replace PySimpleGUI with PyQt etc so --- thanks but no thanks. I did like it because you could throw up something around a CLI and it looked at least presentable. Now, since 2025, nobody codes anymore, so ... seems to me, this PySimpleGUI 6 is just a bit of history.
Funny because that describes pretty much exactly "cloud-first" software architecture, and people jumping on it in troves, unexplainably.
Every time I needed a GUI, I reached out to this library. Very beginner friendly. Good memories.
They kinda assume everyone knows it. Maybe the same thought process led to commercialization…
I know you asked for "the language", but Object Pascal really ain't that bad to get around. If you were proficient in VB6, you should be fine adapting. :-)
- Microsoft killed it: "let's rewrite the entire thing as VB.NET and make it completely different"
- The UIs designed in the RAD weren't particularly responsive in the sense of "responsive design" - generally you couldn't resize a window and have all the elements resize correctly. When I learned Java Swing and elements were defined programmatically as percentages of their container that was kind of eye opening to me.
- The small-time apps that were being developed with VB6 in the 90s are basically all web apps now.
What changed was the level of popularity and acceptance of those tools.
I think it comes down to trends and programmers psychologically subconsciously not wanting to be mistaken for users.
Because unfortunately what subconsciously is accepted as programming must involve colorful cryptic text. And if you are just dragging things around and setting parameters, you are not doing that, and someone might accuse you of being a user.
Not saying it makes sense, but that seems to be the explanation.
But look at WordPress, VB.NET, n8n, LabView, Unreal Engine, Houdini, Unity, etc.
After spending some time thinking about using it across my Mac and Linux machines, I just had Claude write an html file.
Nice, simple runs everywhere.
However I ended up settling on making a Web UI served via FastAPI. I'm still happy about that decision but this one sounded really nice back then.
I.e., "too human-friendly to survive in the presence of The Great AI™".
If so, where does that lead us?
Have you ever written GUI code using one of the big GUI frameworks?
There are a few downsides... there are better options than C++ these days (Rust most obviously), QtWidgets is in maintenance mode, it's a bit of a pain to make an installer from your app, and it doesn't really support modern styling.
But I'd still pick it over this in a heartbeat.
> For the last 5 years, PySimpleGUI offered free software with the hope of sustaining the project with donations. We appreciate the support we received, but the amount has been too small to support the project.
