Handmade Hero is pretty much the perfect project for this. The first few videos go over basic C/C++, but I think in one video you build a Hello World GUI app wi

Handmade Hero is pretty much the perfect project for this. The first few videos go over basic C/C++, but I think in one video you build a Hello World GUI app without using Visual Studio to set up anything, you just call the compiler in a script (initially, Casey used VS as a debugger, which you can do by just asking it to "open" the .exe, but nowadays he uses RemedyBG which is pretty much as useful, and is lightning fast -- costs like 20 bucks). Look at https://handmadehero.org/ https://handmadehero.org/ and Previous Episodes, Day 001 and 002. He's creating a game, not a GUI with textboxes and buttons, but much of it is applicable, and there is very purposely no impenetrable "magic" operating behind the scenes. As for "why is it so complicated?", well... none of the popular 3 OSes or ecosystems are really covering themselves in honor there. I think MS is unique in just how fond of "magic" they are, and there is a lot of boom and bust in their tech stacks, which seems to be mostly driven by their internal structure rather than any kind of rationale. Linux is fond of competition between mutually incomplete alternatives, and constant change even within alternatives. macOS is arguably the most sensible and stable, but it has been about 10 years since I wrote an OS X or iPhone app (weren't called macOS or even iOS back then).