Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native • Hacker News Board

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#71

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

malloreon wrote: post #29

secondo wrote: post #10

Arguably the biggest concern with React Native is that it is controlled by a single entity, Facebook, and that they are not one of the leading mobile platforms who from a business perspective have strong incentives to ensure the future of their respective app eco systems. Facebook's incentives with React Native are somewhat unclear. This is a big, yet often unspoken, reason companies are vary of depending on React Na…

>>> Facebook's incentives with React Native are somewhat unclear I always figured this conversation happened: 1: "We have all these engineers who write javascript but users are switching to native apps. what do we do?" 2: "We could retrain them all." 1: "That would be expensive and time consuming." 2: "We could fire them all." 1: "Also expensive and time consuming." 2: "Wait, what if we made it so you could write nat…

[deleted]

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#72

Post by Despegar » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

Apple really needs to start using the stick more with respect to the inferior-to-native cross-platform frameworks. I hope that's the strategy after SwiftUI matures.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#73

Post by jarnagin » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

hota_mazi wrote: post #6

And in a couple of years, "Why we are moving away from React Native at Shopify". Not slamming React Native but the sensationalistic headline. Anyone with a bit of experience in software should know better than making this kind of silly proclamation about the future of your software stack.

Seems consistent with your comment, IMO, given that "the future" is by definition something which never arrives.

It's much less exciting, however, to say "React Native Is What's Next at Shopify".

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#74

Post by htormey » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

xenihn wrote: post #17

newfeatureok wrote: post #7

Honestly I think the future of mobile will just be... mobile websites. What's missing until regular websites have parity with mobile apps in functionality? - Accelerometer and all sensor support (some of these are already supported on various browsers on various OSes) - Background support - Bluetooth - WiFi - Better notifications - etc. Sure there will always be a need for native, but 99% of apps don't need any of th…

The fact that Facebook themselves will never be able to replace their native iOS and Android apps with RN implementations says it all imo.

React Native is widely used in both Instagram and the main Facebook app (market places). It’s also used in a number of other apps they make (oculus, ads manager).

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#75

Post by jonny_eh » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

phreack wrote: post #70

newfeatureok wrote: post #7

Honestly I think the future of mobile will just be... mobile websites. What's missing until regular websites have parity with mobile apps in functionality? - Accelerometer and all sensor support (some of these are already supported on various browsers on various OSes) - Background support - Bluetooth - WiFi - Better notifications - etc. Sure there will always be a need for native, but 99% of apps don't need any of th…

It can't be overstated how many apps are absolutely dependent on working push notifications (all chat for example) and can't be replicated as websites. And that's not yet implemented for iOS so we're all at Apple's mercy until it is, which may never be.

There's no reason why a web app can't work with push notifications. Won't? ya. Can't? no.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#76

Post by anon9001 » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

Shopify is right to use React Native.

I build an app with React Native Web and we produce Android/iOS/web from the same code base with 3 developers.

No, it's not perfect. Yes, JS can be awkward and confusing. Yes, a truly native app built by expert platform-specific developers would be better.

But I'm able to ship this product with less than half the team size I would need for native development. JavaScript developers are cheap to hire, and they don't need to know any objc/swift/java/kotlin to build the product.

Our product is consistent, because it's the same code across platforms. The business people paying us to build the app are thrilled at how quickly we can turn around features.

We've been shipping this way for 2 years and I would strongly recommend it to everyone.

Also, before people jump in with "But RN is slow and bloated!", it's actually not. The performance is just as good as truly native and the binary is small. The real downside is having the app not feel native, but only developers seem to notice. Pragmatically, most apps are so bad that if your Android app has an iOS look-and-feel nobody seems to care.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#77

Post by tombert » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

I keep putting off learning React Native, largely because I don't really do a lot with JS anymore.

I know that there exists ClojureScript bindings to React-Native...does anyone here have any experience working with them?

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#78

Post by Random_Person » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

phreack wrote: post #70

newfeatureok wrote: post #7

Honestly I think the future of mobile will just be... mobile websites. What's missing until regular websites have parity with mobile apps in functionality? - Accelerometer and all sensor support (some of these are already supported on various browsers on various OSes) - Background support - Bluetooth - WiFi - Better notifications - etc. Sure there will always be a need for native, but 99% of apps don't need any of th…

It can't be overstated how many apps are absolutely dependent on working push notifications (all chat for example) and can't be replicated as websites. And that's not yet implemented for iOS so we're all at Apple's mercy until it is, which may never be.

The sites I build at work have proper push notifications. This problem has already been solved.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#79

Post by hombre_fatal » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

alexashka wrote: post #58

newfeatureok wrote: post #7

Honestly I think the future of mobile will just be... mobile websites. What's missing until regular websites have parity with mobile apps in functionality? - Accelerometer and all sensor support (some of these are already supported on various browsers on various OSes) - Background support - Bluetooth - WiFi - Better notifications - etc. Sure there will always be a need for native, but 99% of apps don't need any of th…

You're viewing it through the lens of a developer. The user wants the best experience. Because software costs 0$ to distribute, the best user experience will always win out. The future of all software is faster, better software. Websites are shitty, arcane technology - the opposite of the future.

I don't know, I get to use uBlock when I use web apps and I have some control over the client even on my phone. Native apps can basically do whatever they want and users are waking up to this.

I would like all of my applications to be sandboxed by a browser I have control over.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#80

Post by TheMagicHorsey » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

I wonder if Shopify did their homework and looked at Flutter. Flutter seems to meet their objectives more than React Native does.

And as an added bonus, Flutter is easier to reason about, has edit and continue, and is more performant.

Perhaps the use of Dart instead of Javascript was a deal killer though?