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Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

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Re: Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

#31

Post by endemic »

hire_charts wrote: post #22
kin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm betting on is the mobile web browser. I know going HTML5 on mobile has failed in the past, but the future can still come. On desktops, desktop apps ruled until web apps became super powerful. I'm betting on the same fate for mobile web apps.

Now that Chrome supports notifications (on Android) I was able to uninstall the native Facebook app and rely exclusively on the web version (which actually loads faster for my anyway). Still have the icon on my homescreen, still get the same notifications -- the main difference is how much better my battery life is now!

Not to mention you don't have to store a 100MB app.

Re: Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

#32

Post by mostafaberg »

currentoor wrote: post #26
mostafaberg wrote: post #20

Why is this on the top of HN ? Honestly, this is a bad thing, not a thing to show off. To quote the author: "We're web developers, not iOS developers." EXACTLY, don't bring your web tech into native platforms, learn to do it the right way or just hire someone who knows how to do it. Seeing things like that creeping into becoming a norm makes me cringe

This is on the top of HN because people, like me, are interested in it. You say learn to do it the "right way", by that logic we should have stuck to making desktop only apps instead of browser based web apps. I'm not saying this is better or worse. But I certainly think it's an approach worth considering.

It's a great piece of tech, I'm not saying anything against that, I'm saying that it shouldn't be used as a replacement for native programming because you don't want to learn a new language. react will come with huge limitations and deps that you don't want to even think about, it's never easy as "code once, deploy everywhere", this is usually a bad decision any company makes, engineering wise.. same reason as adobe air never took off, it's a bad idea, the only reason this is taking off is because people already know JS and don't want to learn something else.

By the "right way" I mean use every language for its intended purpose, you can't build desktop apps in browsers, that's why we have Javascript. and i'm saying we should keep it that way

Re: Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

#33

Post by ghrifter »

warcher wrote: post #29

Truthfully, the language barriers are nothing next to the API barriers dealing with your platform of choice. I am probably giving away my age here, but there's very little that's new under the sun after you've tussled with... say one each of the big three language families. These being: Nasty old C (not going anywhere, ever. Deal with it.), modern scripting languages (Ruby, Python, et al) and the real deal functional…

Yep this is what I'm realizing after a few years of programming. I can pick up a language easily, however learning it's APIs is almost as hard as learning the syntax for the language itself.

Like how do I open a file? Ok cool. How do I close it? Do I need to explicitly close it? Ok.

Also, learning APIs for other peoples codebases/software is task of learning that isn't trivial too

Re: Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

#35

Post by Swizec »

warcher wrote: post #29

Truthfully, the language barriers are nothing next to the API barriers dealing with your platform of choice. I am probably giving away my age here, but there's very little that's new under the sun after you've tussled with... say one each of the big three language families. These being: Nasty old C (not going anywhere, ever. Deal with it.), modern scripting languages (Ruby, Python, et al) and the real deal functional…

Syntax is easy, semantics are hard, cultural norms take time.

Re: Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

#36

Post by mikeryan »

sjclemmy wrote: post #34

I'm writing mobile apps using angular / Cordova and ionic. When they are running on a device I can't tell the difference between a native app and a JS Cordova one. I think JS is the future of mobile apps.

On what device? I've seen cordova apps work flawlessly on some and obviously be webview apps on others.

Re: Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

#37

Post by misiti3780 »

warcher wrote: post #29

Truthfully, the language barriers are nothing next to the API barriers dealing with your platform of choice. I am probably giving away my age here, but there's very little that's new under the sun after you've tussled with... say one each of the big three language families. These being: Nasty old C (not going anywhere, ever. Deal with it.), modern scripting languages (Ruby, Python, et al) and the real deal functional…

i agree with you, although i think you are forgetting to add (and maybe it is implied here and i missed it) that learning mobile development requires you to not only learn new language APIs in objC/swift, but you also have to learn some new design patterns (delegation, etc.) and most importantly the SDKs (CocoaTouch)

if you can use react native and avoid learning a lot of this it is a big win - I havnt used it yet, and I have a hard time believing it a mobile only company would use it to build their mobile app, but i am excited where it is going.

Re: Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

#38

Post by marknutter »

What I'm curious to know is, outside of the arguments about React being the superior pattern for developing UI's, how is this fundamentally better than or different from other hybrid libraries like Appcellerator Titanium or Xamarin?

In my experience they all fall short when you try to get the last 20% of your app written. Because you're not writing in the native language, directly accessing native API's, you're always going to be limited to the abstractions that the hybrid framework has (or hasn't) defined.

I much prefer either going full native or full HTML5 because I never hit a wall when I try to do something that hasn't been covered well by the hybrid framework yet.

Re: Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

#39

Post by iheart2code »

I am particularly interested in hearing about view transitions. I know JavaScript, Android, and iOS development and found that, while I could easily make a React Native app work on iOS and Android, it was lacking the polish that modular view transitions could provide.

Re: Developing Our First iOS App with React Native

#40

Post by dsp1234 »

mostafaberg wrote: post #32
currentoor wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is on the top of HN because people, like me, are interested in it. You say learn to do it the "right way", by that logic we should have stuck to making desktop only apps instead of browser based web apps. I'm not saying this is better or worse. But I certainly think it's an approach worth considering.

It's a great piece of tech, I'm not saying anything against that, I'm saying that it shouldn't be used as a replacement for native programming because you don't want to learn a new language. react will come with huge limitations and deps that you don't want to even think about, it's never easy as "code once, deploy everywhere", this is usually a bad decision any company makes, engineering wise.. same reason as adobe…

React Native doesn't claim "code once, deploy everywhere", and in fact embraces native APIs where appropriate. As a reference, their slogan is "learn once, write anywhere". In other words, learn React Native, and write native apps wherever you want. Indeed one of the opening talks about React Native at React Conf specifically mentions that React Native is a leaky abstraction, and embraces that by allowing multiple escape hatches so that the native APIs are always available.

Railing against React Native seems like railing against Unity3d, or saying that abstracting the common parts of mobile development (while leaving the non-common parts 100% available) is a bad thing.

By the "right way" I mean use every language for its intended purpose, you can't build desktop apps in browsers

You can build desktop apps in browsers (ie emscripten). Additionally, can you explain why a "language" (as compared to platform specific APIs) has any relevance to what can or can't be built for a mobile device? For JavaScript specifically, if Apple didn't think that it was a language for building applications on iOS, then why would they ever have release JavascriptCore (which is what React Native uses)?

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