Speaking of the size and Win32: I remember fondly in Delphi years there was a full-fledged framework which replaced the included libraries: KOL and MCK [1] (latter one replaced VCL), written from scratch and relying mostly on Win32 and a bit of asm.
It produced ridiculously tiny and responsive programs, both CLI and GUI, while still integrating into Delphi (and later Lazarus) drag-n-drop IDE workflow.
Needless to say, the specifics of the project attracted the obsessive type. Currently, the main developer is working on his own language Al-IV [2][3]. One of the goals, it seems, is total platform mobility, the language supposedly compiles (transpiles?) to "C#, Delphi (32 bit old style, with VCL), Free Pascal/Lazarus and Java/Android". I honestly don't know what it is, a work of a genius or fringe art, but that's a lot of work and I think it deserves a bit of attention.
It produced ridiculously tiny and responsive programs, both CLI and GUI, while still integrating into Delphi (and later Lazarus) drag-n-drop IDE workflow.
Needless to say, the specifics of the project attracted the obsessive type. Currently, the main developer is working on his own language Al-IV [2][3]. One of the goals, it seems, is total platform mobility, the language supposedly compiles (transpiles?) to "C#, Delphi (32 bit old style, with VCL), Free Pascal/Lazarus and Java/Android". I honestly don't know what it is, a work of a genius or fringe art, but that's a lot of work and I think it deserves a bit of attention.
1. https://wiki.freepascal.org/KOL
2. http://f0460945.xsph.ru/AL4/index.html
3. https://sourceforge.net/projects/al-iv/