Ode to wxWidgets

I love wxWidgets. I love what it stands for, an open source project that is done by people who care about it. I love it’s ruggedness. I love it’s tenancity to stay around. I love it’s unapologic existence as a C++ library.

I love it because it was my introduction to a UI framework. It is the basis of UI framework used by CalChart. Years before I even went to UC Berkeley and joined the marching band Gurk Meeker and others started writing the program to help the Cal Band chart their shows, and they wanted a cross-platform framework and reached for wxWidgets. And its still kicking, with 12 releases and numerous improvements over the years.

Back when I was working in the iPod Software team I remarked to Jeff Lee about how much a UI framework influences the way you program. The decisions made by the authors about how the threading model works, or how events are processed really change the way you write your code, and almost every decision you take.

I love wxWidgets for all the things it’s taught me about C++ programming, and about how to continue to be passionate about programming. I want to send a big thank you to all the contributors who’ve made this library possible.

Written on August 7, 2022