Yes, because it isn't just the UI (from your comment about Linux i guess you mean UI with "interface") but about how everything is designed with the rest in min

Yes, because it isn't just the UI (from your comment about Linux i guess you mean UI with "interface") but about how everything is designed with the rest in mind with no seams in-between. The "unix way" is to have reusable independent pieces that focus only on one thing that you connect together to create your application (often while accepting any limitations due to those connections - e.g. communication being in text format only). This is in complete antithesis to the monolithic all-in-one design that tools like dBase, FoxPro, classic Visual Basic (to some extent), etc provided. It is important to keep in mind that these tools aren't just the sum of their parts, you can't take each part in isolation - it is the entire thing as a whole. Now, you can grab these individual components and throw a blanket over them that pretends to be one unified whole, but AFAIK that has never worked in practice and you always get "leaks" - which will certainly happen with something that people will try to program against.