A WYSIWYG HTML editor (as in Writely/Gmail) isn't quote the same as a general WYSIWYG document editor, though.
Unix programs, even GUI ones, share a ton of code, as you can easily see if you try to install an interesting GUI application like Shotwell or Digikam.
Heck, I've never written an Instant Messenger application, but I know that "libpurple" is the name for the IM component that most Linux chat programs use.
libpurple is intended to be the core of an IM program.
When using libpurple, you'll basically be writing a UI for this core chunk of code. Pidgin is a GTK+ frontend to libpurple, Finch is an ncurses frontend, and Adium is a Cocoa frontend.
Unix programs, even GUI ones, share a ton of code, as you can easily see if you try to install an interesting GUI application like Shotwell or Digikam.
Heck, I've never written an Instant Messenger application, but I know that "libpurple" is the name for the IM component that most Linux chat programs use.
And hey, that's exactly how it is advertised:
http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/WhatIsLibpurple
What is libpurple?
libpurple is intended to be the core of an IM program. When using libpurple, you'll basically be writing a UI for this core chunk of code. Pidgin is a GTK+ frontend to libpurple, Finch is an ncurses frontend, and Adium is a Cocoa frontend.