Why UI code matters

As a simplification, there are three types of software:

1. Client/frontend
2. Headless/backend
3. Embedded

(Sure, there is some overlap and some things straddle these loose definitions.)

What separates client/frontend software from the others is that it has a graphical user interface (GUI).

I'm a big fan of GUIs.
I like that they make software easier to use because I can see things and don't have to remember as many options, commands, or a set of seemingly magic words to get the software to do what I want.

For many, many people, GUIs make software possible, usable, and desirable.

However, for many developers, creating GUIs can be a source of frustration.

Regardless of whether using markup to describe the structure of the code or an imperative language that describes how to create it, GUI code can easily become verbose and hard to maintain.

If code is hard to maintain it becomes slower and therefore more expensive to modify without unintended consequences and negative side effects.

If spending extra time modifying hard to change code that means less time for doing other work. Such as fixing bugs or adding new features.

There are also the negative emotions and blows to motivation developers feel about having to work with hard to maintain code.

The GUI is also important as it's the part of the application that people (users) see and interact with. It's what many people will know as the face of the application that they may spend hours looking at each day. They may spend more time looking at it than other people or the faces of their loved ones. For something that gets that much time and attention from the people using the software, doesn't it deserve adequate consideration from a development perspective too?

It can be easy to dismiss the GUI as less important than other parts of a code base, but doing so is a mistake.