But my point is that it's pretty weird to bring up SML in particular around GUI programming. The GUI framework only example I know of is mGTK and SML/tk which are far from idiomatic and pretty much require you to write imperative OOP code in SML. Meanwhile SML has existed for decades. It's one thing to say "people aren't using this great model we've developed the basics off, please help make it better", but if you wanted to write an idiomatic GUI app in SML today, your first step would be to have to write the GUI framework itself because no one else has. They don't provide any real options even if you fully buy in and want to jump in with what they're saying.
But my point is that it's pretty weird to bring up SML in particular around GUI programming. The GUI framework only example I know of is mGTK and SML/tk which are far from idiomatic and pretty much require you to write imperative OOP code in SML. Meanwhile SML has existed for decades. It's one thing to say "people aren't using this great model we've developed the basics off, please help make it better", but if you wanted to write an idiomatic GUI app in SML today, your first step would be to have to write the GUI framework itself because no one else has. They don't provide any real options even if you fully buy in and want to jump in with what they're saying.