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React Native for Windows and Mac

microsoft.github.io

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Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#341

Post by choward »

Drew_ wrote: post #263
NateEag wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The browser is where the hundreds of megabytes vanish to when you use a JS app instead of a native one. That might still be better (I'm undecided, personally), but it's worth recognizing that heavy native app is still there, just shared with a lot of other JS apps.

You could say the same about system libraries/binaries every native app needs to run

Native apps can share libraries at run time. I'm no electron expert but I'm assuming electron apps only can share dependencies at build time at which point they would be copied into the executable so they really wouldn't be sharing.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#342

Post by dep_b »

Those JavaScript cross-platform solutions are opaque boxes that run basically their own operating system within an operating system. This comes at a penalty of a non-standard UX and higher than usual CPU usage and memory usage. But after they tackled that hurdle (like Visual Studio Code, excellent work), they still lack a lot of platform standard goodies like Accessibility and AppleScript.

I prefer solutions like Xamarin / Mono where you can have a Cocoa UI coupled with C# or F# based dll's. Let's be honest, as long as you have a good way of maintaining a good state in your app for example by already using ViewModels that did most of the heavy lifting like formatting strings, having the state in a state machine and so on, getting the UI to work as required is just an exercise of filling in the colors between the lines.

Barely anyone would notice they were using a Xamarin based solution on a Mac, while the JS based applications are immediately really obvious to the trained eye.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#343

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

sayhello wrote: post #236
scarface74 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this reason, I've been trying out Flutter or even considering to go back to native apps. This says so much about the sad state of modern software development... When native development is a last resort.

Why does it have to be sad? When software becomes easier to develop, it enables everyone to benefit. More developers, more applications of software. At the same time, performance has a tangential relationship with computer code being interpreted or compiled to native. After all, Java is compiled to byte code and powers plenty of high traffic servers efficiently. Many AAA games use ActionScript, Python, Lua, etc for t…

Java, JavaScript, .NET, forks of Lua, forks of Python, and others are JIT compiled.

So I am not sure what you are saying. Everyone that is able to is compiling their stuff to try to regain some efficiency.

The reason is that people wants to do more complex things with their software nowadays, and hardware can't keep up with the trend. There is also battery life, smartphones, tablets...

Those are the reasons we are seeing a resurgence of native development.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#344

Post by scarface74 »

krzat wrote: post #333
scarface74 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad for who? Yes and a long time ago Sun came out with Swing. How did that work out? Even before that MS came out with P-Code and the abomination that was Word 6 for the Mac.

Sad for developers. What I had in mind regarding desktop were big tools like Blender, Photoshop, Blender, IntelliJ IDEs, which existed long before Electron. I think it clearly shows that complex UI apps require cross platform UI, or will remain single platform (Xcode, Visual Studio).

Let me tell you a story...

I was at a crossroads in 2008. I had been developing mostly in C for a decade and decided to pivot to being your standard “Enterprise Dev”. I had a choice between moving my career to C# or Java. I chose C# partly because of the bad stench of the cross platform Java IDEs at the time. Give me VS or Xcode any day over a Java based IDE.

Photoshop definitely isn’t using a non native runtime. I doubt that Blender is either.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#345

Post by rimliu »

diss wrote: post #188
scarface74 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this reason, I've been trying out Flutter or even considering to go back to native apps. This says so much about the sad state of modern software development... When native development is a last resort.

I don't think so, if RN or similar is a viable option then it makes far more sense than juggling large Java and Swift implementations of the same app.

I will gladly write 10x Swift thatn RN. That said it is usually less code, because you don't have to reinvent thnings.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#346

Post by tiborsaas »

Exuma wrote: post #122
wyc wrote: post #17

React Native scares me with its dependency webs: http://npm.anvaka.com/#/view/2d/react-native From my experience, it's really great to work with and definitely saves a ton of work, but the depgraph above fills me with doubt for use in sensitive applications such as in finance or healthcare. For this reason, I've been trying out Flutter or even considering to go back to native apps. Perhaps there's some kind of middle…

It was the worst experience of my development life, building a phone app with it........................ never, never, never again. If you want to know what it's like to have everything break LITERALLY every few days, use react native.

I tried RN for the first time (with a lot of React experience) a few weeks ago and I haven't noticed this. I don't use third party libraries though, maybe that was the source of your problems?

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#347

Post by rimliu »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #128
Exuma wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the worst experience of my development life, building a phone app with it........................ never, never, never again. If you want to know what it's like to have everything break LITERALLY every few days, use react native.

As someone just getting into mobile development, I've enjoyed using it significantly more than native iOS/Android. It's so much faster and more straightforward to spin up designs,

If you know native at the same level, RN is in now way faster.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#348

Post by tiborsaas »

jiofih wrote: post #197
throwaway6734 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone just getting into mobile development, I've enjoyed using it significantly more than native iOS/Android. It's so much faster and more straightforward to spin up designs,

Until your first update. I assume you didn’t work on anything that has been released?

What happens when you do the first update? Have you used Expo?

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#349

Post by igravious »

filoleg wrote: post #14
igravious wrote: post #11

Excuse my ignorance. What's new about this? I thought React Native was already a thing?

React Native was a thing for native mobile app development. The post is talking about React Native becoming available for native desktop app development.

Much obliged!

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#350

Post by [deleted] »

fermienrico wrote: post #252
andai wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today I installed an Electron-based terminal emulator and started seriously questioning my life choices.

I have the opinion that UI should not be async - meaning if there is some processing going on, UI elements should be disabled from interaction until the function returns. If it is a web query, I think that's fine. When applications start adding queues and jobs, UI feels "springy" instead of "snappy". User is waiting for some feedback of how long something is going to take, instead the user assumes that job is done (d…

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