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Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

engineering.shopify.com

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

#201

Post by kyriakos »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #197

I'm surprised no one is mentioning this: "At the beginning of 2019, we did a 6-week experiment on our flagship Point of Sale (POS) app to see if it would be a good candidate for a rewrite in React Native. We learned a lot, including that our retail merchants expect almost 2x the responsiveness in our POS due to the muscle memory of using our app while also talking to customers. In order to best serve our retail merch…

Really depends on their priorities and customer base. We developed a react native android app and users seem to be happy with it. Would native be smoother? Maybe..

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

#202

Post by apl002 »

Despegar wrote: post #198
ppeetteerr wrote: post #197

I'm surprised no one is mentioning this: "At the beginning of 2019, we did a 6-week experiment on our flagship Point of Sale (POS) app to see if it would be a good candidate for a rewrite in React Native. We learned a lot, including that our retail merchants expect almost 2x the responsiveness in our POS due to the muscle memory of using our app while also talking to customers. In order to best serve our retail merch…

That really just says it all doesn't it? It's basically an admission that the use of cross-platform frameworks is worse for customers/users, but they're going to ignore that to optimize for their own software engineering org.

you act like whatever something is right now is the same in the future. It's quite possible they see RN as the future for all products and easing there way into things. Maybe they are struggling to find Java/Kotlin devs and have a surplus of Swift devs. So no, that does not really just say it all.

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

#203

Post by ameixaseca »

React Native sounds like a mistimed bet now. Maybe 3-4 years ago, but at this time? There are a number of better alternatives.

I spent some time working on a RN project, and even though the whole idea of declarative interface, state update, etc is interesting, it is not exclusive of RN - and there is the whole rest of the story: RN libraries are a mess and usually buggy, there is virtually very little compatibility between native and web, and.. have anyone ever tried updating a RN codebase?

I remember we had to recreate the full project and copy the files manually because everything was broken beyond any hope, this after spending a full week trying to fix the build.

For Shopify seem that even a PWA could fit, and would be much more compatible, reliable, etc.

By the way, one of their justification is "in-house know-how", which I heard so many times before... This is usually how you justify crappy decisions by using inferior technology and then spending 2x the effort to try to fix it. I hope it doesn't happen with them, but it does like like that's the way they are heading to.

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

#204

Post by chrisco255 »

Despegar wrote: post #198
ppeetteerr wrote: post #197

I'm surprised no one is mentioning this: "At the beginning of 2019, we did a 6-week experiment on our flagship Point of Sale (POS) app to see if it would be a good candidate for a rewrite in React Native. We learned a lot, including that our retail merchants expect almost 2x the responsiveness in our POS due to the muscle memory of using our app while also talking to customers. In order to best serve our retail merch…

That really just says it all doesn't it? It's basically an admission that the use of cross-platform frameworks is worse for customers/users, but they're going to ignore that to optimize for their own software engineering org.

All this says to me is that they wanted to limit their risk exposure by doing an experiment on Android while maintaining native on iOS. Why is that hard to comprehend? Their move to RN this year should underscore the success of that experiment.

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

#205

Post by apl002 »

jammygit wrote: post #89
phreack wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can’t stand push notifications, I disable them all except for a couple (like signal). They are usually only part of the app to manipulate you into using it constantly

I love push notifications. Its honestly how I stay up to date on whatever is happening. I aint got time to scroll through everything

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

#206

Post by pjmlp »

oakesm9 wrote: post #173
pjmlp wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft should be on that list as well.

I missed it off as I mentioned them in the paragraph above. They seem to be investing more and more into React Native with support for Windows and using it in Office.

It is a bit more than that.

They are also supporting React Native for macOS, and most of their teams that are in the C++ side of "C++ vs .NET" eternal politics seem to want to go with React Native for the managed layer.

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

#208

Post by goatlover »

api wrote: post #187
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…

I'm convinced that the long-term future of all UI development is web based, at least at the rendering layer. WASM may free us from JavaScript.

IS WASM canvas-based or HTML/CSS? Because canvas is not what comes to mind when thinking in terms of Web UI.

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

#209

Post by Touche »

Despegar wrote: post #198
ppeetteerr wrote: post #197

I'm surprised no one is mentioning this: "At the beginning of 2019, we did a 6-week experiment on our flagship Point of Sale (POS) app to see if it would be a good candidate for a rewrite in React Native. We learned a lot, including that our retail merchants expect almost 2x the responsiveness in our POS due to the muscle memory of using our app while also talking to customers. In order to best serve our retail merch…

That really just says it all doesn't it? It's basically an admission that the use of cross-platform frameworks is worse for customers/users, but they're going to ignore that to optimize for their own software engineering org.

Right, but it doesn't really optimize for their engineering team either since the only reason to use something like React Native is the ability to do both platforms at once.

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

#210

Post by apl002 »

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.

this is the dumbest take on here. You think that because Facebook hasn't rewrote their apps in RN that RN must suck? What kind of evaluation for software is that.

They haven't rewrote in RN because it's unnecessary. Its not worth the engineering resources. There is so many things on the global product roadmap to build then rewrite something that already exists and works fine.

Like all software, RN is great for certain use cases. Just because someone isn't using it for X doesn't mean it also sucks for Y.

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