I remember more than a few arguments here on the forums about the pros and cons of immediate mode UI frameworks, and the general consensus at the time seemed to be that while they were cool for quick demos, various issues around performance and state management meant they were generally not all that useful.
Fast forward a few years (during which I mostly ignored web technologies), and I see that React and it's native aspects have taken over a significant portion of the web and mobile app space. React is, among other things, a pretty straightforward expression of immediate mode UI - you have a stateless render() function that simply describes what should be rendered (and handles state updates), and the framework takes care of manipulating any stateful retained mode backend constructs under the hood.
What I lack is the historical perspective on how this came to be. When did immediate mode make the jump from a handful of game-specific libraries to the mainstream?
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