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Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

arielelkin.github.io

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Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#121

Post by krinchan »

Axsuul wrote: post #113
ziziyO wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything where you need to stay alive in the background and periodically do something.

So like a messaging app?

Uh no. Your application can be completely shut down and push notifications will still arrive on the phone for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Once the app is open, you load the new bits of the conversation.

Stuff in the background would be like video/audio calls, playing music, actively monitoring motion/gps (MapMyRun/Ride/Swim/etc), and a few other things that escape me at the moment.

Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#122

Post by andrepd »

STRML wrote: post #21

This is simply a list of things the author doesn't like about JS, very much of which is practically solved by Flow/TS and ESLint. He also makes some of the React examples quite a bit more complicated than they need to be. Declarative UI is very simple! Here's the same code, using both class and functional styles (whichever you prefer), in a much more succinct style (11 LOC vs 49): class Root extends Component { rende…

"Javascript’s inadequacy" is but a section. The author addresses many other concerns in the text. Also, the Flow thing is specifically addressed.

Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#123

Post by andrepd »

pauljaworski wrote: post #108
Pfhreak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is simply a list of things the author doesn't like about JS, very much of which is practically solved by Flow/TS and ESLint. That's definitely not a fair characterization of this article. Concerns about roadmap and patent usage show up before any concerns about JS. Edit: Though I agree, a strangely large amount of the article is dedicated to "Why I just don't like Javascript."

That is a very fair characterization of the article - 70% of the article's content is about why JavaScript is bad.

Well, it is :)

Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#124

Post by andrepd »

To add to the list of javascript gripes, performance is terrible. For the web we can sort of excuse it because ok, it's running in a browser and has to be cross platform and interpreted and etc. But for a native app? No excuse to burden the user with a slow, sluggish, resource and battery draining app when a compiled native app can be snappy, quick to load, and light on the CPU.

Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#125

Post by andrepd »

macspoofing wrote: post #95
catshirt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"overly verbose" might be giving too much credit... it's bad code

No. 'Verbose' is correct. It's not bad code. It's a simple control flow.

Using a branch when you can just do an assignment is objectively bad code.

Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#126

Post by qaq »

Granted Swift is a nice language TS or JS + transpiler + flow is decent and unlike Swift you can actually utilise multiple threads :) The patent stuff is moot point Apple has about the same language in their license.

Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#127

Post by greggman »

The author's rant on JS and npm deps has a point but his rant on typescript, flow, and other transpilers completely misses the mark. If JavaScript is an unsafe language and therefore anything that compiles on top of it is unsafe the same is true of Swift as it compiles to assembly/machine language which is unsafe. If you consider JavaScript some cross platform assembly language then there is no difference between the two ideas.

He also rants about using the best language that catches the most errors but then picks Swift as his solution. I have a feeling there's lots of other devs that would not rank Swift at the top of languages that catch the most errors and therefore the author is being hypocritical in ranting that you should always use the best since they're arguably not using the best.

The article did make some other interesting points

Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#128

Post by RodericDay »

greggman wrote: post #127

The author's rant on JS and npm deps has a point but his rant on typescript, flow, and other transpilers completely misses the mark. If JavaScript is an unsafe language and therefore anything that compiles on top of it is unsafe the same is true of Swift as it compiles to assembly/machine language which is unsafe. If you consider JavaScript some cross platform assembly language then there is no difference between the…

> If you consider JavaScript some cross platform assembly language

I am so sad right now

Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#129

Post by nkozyra »

hiou wrote: post #120
Pfhreak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is simply a list of things the author doesn't like about JS, very much of which is practically solved by Flow/TS and ESLint. That's definitely not a fair characterization of this article. Concerns about roadmap and patent usage show up before any concerns about JS. Edit: Though I agree, a strangely large amount of the article is dedicated to "Why I just don't like Javascript."

This is definitely a specialist feeling the discomfort of not yet becoming a polyglot. Had a CTO like that once.

The author seems to express a deep enough understanding of Javascript to not warrant this dismissive critique.

It's not like he's saying "Javascript sucks," he's outlining specific places where it can cause issues in development compared to the alternative.

Re: Why I'm Not a React Native Developer

#130

Post by mastazi »

From the article:

> Compared to React Native, both Xamarin and Appcelerator have better prospects at longevity. Appcelerator (the maker of Titanium) (runs on apps installed on 350 million devices) was acquired in January 2016

Last time I tried (circa 2013) Appcelerator seemed a bit unpolished and the tooling was sub-par (I vaguely remember of some hacks needed to get their custom IDE runnning on Windows), I would like to know how are they doing now. Could anyone familiar with it summarise their recent developments?

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