Cross platform GUI widgets were possibly a good idea seven years ago if you didn't care about looking too good on OS X (still today, Qt applications look somewh

Cross platform GUI widgets were possibly a good idea seven years ago if you didn't care about looking too good on OS X (still today, Qt applications look somewhat off on that platform). Today, they are a terrible idea, because every mobile platform looks different and if you try to make one interface for all, it will feel non-native on every one. At least if you use completely custom widgets, as HTML forces you to, it will be clearly non-native, not something pretending to be native but with the wrong behaviors. I'm sure many people fundamentally want programming to be as close to write-once-run-anywhere as possible, and hence think this is a terrible state of affairs; for me, though, having different platforms with different, clear design philosophies is a good thing as it encourages people to care about and innovate in design.