One of the leading contenders for being a modern equivalent IMO would be the Godot game engine. The Godot editor is less than 100MB to download for many platfo

One of the leading contenders for being a modern equivalent IMO would be the Godot game engine. The Godot editor is less than 100MB to download for many platforms--the recent Godot 4 release also supports running the editor on the web[0] and on Android. Its packaging/distribution story for GUI-based applications is easier & stronger than any other modern programming environment of which I'm aware--in a large part due to the (IMO inspired) architecture of using per-platform pre-built application templates/shells paired with per-project "data" files that contain assets & script byte code. Godot's modularity, ease of development & distribution has led to it being adopted for non-game applications too: "Apps & Tools - 2022 Showreel" <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kKp0oguzr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kKp0oguzr8> I do think the initial "complexity of the programming" for an absolute beginner is probably still at least a little bit higher than drag-and-drop GUI environments like classic VB, REALbasic, VBA or Hypercard. (Primarily from a UI/UX point of view because Godot doesn't directly have the "drag button from toolbar" workflow which I think was key in earlier systems. But it is extremely modular by way of configuration & extension--one intended use case being e.g. specialized feature-subsetted tools for artists.) In my experience it also works really well for iterative development where you can just hack around (from visual & code perspectives) to get something working & then refine it (and using Godot's "Scenes" paradigm for encapsulation). Anyway, you might like to consider suggesting Godot next time you're riding in a cab & discover that the driver is a beginner who would like to learn. :) [0] <https://editor.godotengine.org/releases/4.0.stable/godot.editor.html https://editor.godotengine.org/releases/4.0.stable/godot.edi...>