Why Use C for UI Library? | Nic Barker

Nic Barker is a self-taught programmer who went from web development to building Clay, a fast UI layout library in C. We talk about how he got started, his journey into low-level programming, the challenges of building tools, and what makes great software. Join us! Nic Website: https://www.nicbarker.com/ Github: https://github.com/nicbarker Clay: https://www.nicbarker.com/clay YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nicbarkeragain X: https://x.com/nicbarkeragain Wookash Podcast Show links: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lukasz-sciga Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7tExkDJcI6vvmpCguX8Ygd Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wookash-podcast/id1683109481 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9J9u3apteD0EuFjzRpt71w RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/dd7643a4/podcast/rss X: https://x.com/wookash_podcast Chapters: 00:00 Highlights 00:49 Programming Journey 10:39 Founding a Startup 12:25 Work Experience 16:42 Switching 24:05 Clay Inspiration 32:19 What is Clay? 35:31 Immediate vs Retained Mode 44:04 Browsers and Virtual DOM 50:23 Clay Backend Compatibility 53:14 Macros 01:00:49 Choosing C 01:03:49 Dislikes about C 01:08:59 Complexity in Clay 01:17:27 Performance Bottlenecks 01:21:36 Contributing to Clay 01:25:23 Finding Time 01:28:38 License 01:29:55 Marketing & Teaching 01:43:29 Code Editor 01:48:29 The Importance of Debugger