Java Swing Desktop applications solved that problem 20 years ago. Windows 11 has compatibility that enables it to run applications written 15 years ago using,

Java Swing Desktop applications solved that problem 20 years ago. Windows 11 has compatibility that enables it to run applications written 15 years ago using, say, .NET framework 3.5 and Windows Forms. Those even work on Linux with Wine, providing a more stable ABI for programming Linux desktop apps than anything that's native to the Linux world. Wine for macOS might even bring these apps to macOS too in the future. -- So, despite the fact that those developers 15 years ago were testing on Windows XP and didn't know what my environment would look like in 2023, or that I might not even be running Windows, those applications just work. And the libraries of UI components available through these tech stacks make Compose for Desktop look like a laughable toy. It was only the generations of technology that came after that had persistent compatiblity problems and made you shoot for a constantly moving target. ...all we need is to get back something we've lost, which doesn't seem like such an impossible proposition at all, at least on the engineering front. Whether there's a business-will just because there's an engineering-way is a whole other question, though.