Wookash Podcast Dear ImGui | On UI Architecture with Omar Cornut
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Nov 8, 2025 Omar Cornut, a software engineer and the creator of Dear ImGui, shares his journey from learning BASIC to developing an innovative UI library widely used in game dev. He discusses the importance of hands-on learning versus formal education, and how immediate-mode GUI design speeds up development. Omar explains the differences between IMGUI and Dear ImGui, the challenges of maintaining stability, and the rich ecosystem of language bindings. He also reveals exciting future plans for enhanced styling and a new text editor, emphasizing performance and pragmatism in API design.
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Early Self-Taught Programmer
- Omar learned programming by tinkering from age 12 and built a multiplayer Tron clone that his friends actually played.
- That early hands-on feedback taught him to value building useful tools over formal theory.
Discovering Immediate-Mode UI
- Omar discovered immediate-mode UI while building editors at Q-Games and expanded it heavily as he made more tools.
- That experience led him to implement IMGUI for Tearaway and later port it to Dreams, sparking Dear ImGui's origin.
Start Simple To Prototype Fast
- You can implement a simple immediate-mode UI with a few widgets in an afternoon to prototype tools quickly.
- But note the trap: a toy IMGUI often becomes a long-term maintenance project if adopted widely.
