Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#101

Post by retor » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 5:57 AM UTC

hamstergene wrote: post #82

enra wrote: post #52

This is very inaccurate in many aspects, not sure if actually anything accurate in this except the fact that Airbnb did use and eventually dumped RN (source: I worked at Airbnb 2015-2019 on the platform team). As others have linked, Airbnb actually did write a summary about this. Basically what went down: For years Airbnb had actually pretty strong native mobile engineering both on iOS and Android (some of the best e…

I have never seen cross-platform UI that would work and/or look close enough to native. It has always been classic "choose any two": cross-platform, UI, great. There were many people who claimed they have achieved all three, but at the close examination all of them, 100% without exception, were missing many little things like standard shortcuts, respecting color preference in user settings, or just couldn't see the d…

> I have never seen cross-platform UI that would work and/or look close enough to native.

But wouldn't knowing that require that you investigated the tech choices of all the apps you are using? If not, there's a slight fallacy in that you only _know_ that the app is cross platform when you can see that it is. So then obviously all the apps you know is cross platform will look out of place, because that's how you know they are cross platform. Not sure I'm making the argument very well.

For instance, I'm don't think that the Discord app for iOS and Android looks out of place [0].

> Switching to React Native for the Android app means an experience that is ever-improving at a more rapid pace across every platform Discord is available on, while still retaining Android and iOS specific patterns in the UI.

[0]: https://discord.com/blog/android-react-native-framework-upda...

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#102

Post by _0w8t » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:04 AM UTC

hamstergene wrote: post #82

enra wrote: post #52

This is very inaccurate in many aspects, not sure if actually anything accurate in this except the fact that Airbnb did use and eventually dumped RN (source: I worked at Airbnb 2015-2019 on the platform team). As others have linked, Airbnb actually did write a summary about this. Basically what went down: For years Airbnb had actually pretty strong native mobile engineering both on iOS and Android (some of the best e…

I have never seen cross-platform UI that would work and/or look close enough to native. It has always been classic "choose any two": cross-platform, UI, great. There were many people who claimed they have achieved all three, but at the close examination all of them, 100% without exception, were missing many little things like standard shortcuts, respecting color preference in user settings, or just couldn't see the d…

Is the point of React Native to use native GUI elements and not to emulate the platform look and feel?

A few years ago I worked on Java application using SWT. It looked very OK on Linux/Mac/Windows. Even original AWT in Java was cross-platform an native. The problem with Java was GC pauses, but this is a solved problem now.

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#103

Post by spoonjim » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:04 AM UTC

When your company is making billions of dollars a year from mobile apps it makes sense to have native teams. React Native is for development efforts with fewer resources.

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#104

Post by FlyingSnake » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:10 AM UTC

retor wrote: post #101

hamstergene wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen cross-platform UI that would work and/or look close enough to native. It has always been classic "choose any two": cross-platform, UI, great. There were many people who claimed they have achieved all three, but at the close examination all of them, 100% without exception, were missing many little things like standard shortcuts, respecting color preference in user settings, or just couldn't see the d…

> I have never seen cross-platform UI that would work and/or look close enough to native. But wouldn't knowing that require that you investigated the tech choices of all the apps you are using? If not, there's a slight fallacy in that you only _know_ that the app is cross platform when you can see that it is. So then obviously all the apps you know is cross platform will look out of place, because that's how you know…

The discord user complaints rose exponentially after the switch to RN, and almost all users felt a perceivable difference in the quality of the new apps.

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#105

Post by wingerlang » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:12 AM UTC

gigel82 wrote: post #92

wingerlang wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an iOS only perspective, but it sounds like you are not actually looking too hard for iOS developers?. No iOS developer considers Swift antiquated (because it isn't). I'd argue no one even considers UIKit antiquated (middle aged, maybe). Maybe with the exception of brand new iOS developers who has jumped on the SwiftUI-only bandwagon. SwiftUI itself is so new that it barely is production ready. Sounds to me l…

Sorry, just realized most folks associate React Native with mobile. We target that too, but we're mostly targeting desktop platforms (via React Native Windows and React Native macOS) - and in our case antiquated really means antiquated (think old-school custom XML-based UI framework).

I see, in that case I understand it more.

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#106

Post by FlyingSnake » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:13 AM UTC

gigel82 wrote: post #70

enra wrote: post #52

This is very inaccurate in many aspects, not sure if actually anything accurate in this except the fact that Airbnb did use and eventually dumped RN (source: I worked at Airbnb 2015-2019 on the platform team). As others have linked, Airbnb actually did write a summary about this. Basically what went down: For years Airbnb had actually pretty strong native mobile engineering both on iOS and Android (some of the best e…

> Mobile engineers didn’t want to write RN code and web engineers didn’t want to build on mobile That's interesting. In our experience, we're having a difficult time hiring folks that want to write native (including UI) in antiquated languages and frameworks - but it's much easier to hire JavaScript folks that just hack at RN. Of course, someone still needs to stand up the actual platform, as well as write shared (an…

> folks that want to write native (including UI) in antiquated languages and frameworks

I’m which land is Kotlin and Swift antiquated? Both a modern and cutting edge technologies with stellar toolchain and 1st class IDE and platform support.

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#107

Post by Traubenfuchs » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:23 AM UTC

> Now, one resort for them would be to use Airbnb’s web application on the web browsers of their phones, which doesn’t make much sense.

Why?

A proper web app would be sufficient.

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#108

Post by wiseowise » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:39 AM UTC

hamstergene wrote: post #82

enra wrote: post #52

This is very inaccurate in many aspects, not sure if actually anything accurate in this except the fact that Airbnb did use and eventually dumped RN (source: I worked at Airbnb 2015-2019 on the platform team). As others have linked, Airbnb actually did write a summary about this. Basically what went down: For years Airbnb had actually pretty strong native mobile engineering both on iOS and Android (some of the best e…

I have never seen cross-platform UI that would work and/or look close enough to native. It has always been classic "choose any two": cross-platform, UI, great. There were many people who claimed they have achieved all three, but at the close examination all of them, 100% without exception, were missing many little things like standard shortcuts, respecting color preference in user settings, or just couldn't see the d…

React Native literally uses native widgets.

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#109

Post by wiseowise » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:43 AM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #90

dimmke wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I’d wager your app quality will suffer. I really dislike this argument, and it comes up every time React Native is discussed. I think it's a holdover from Ionic style mobile applications that simply emulated native UI in a webview. It was awful - especially when the native UI changed and the Ionic apps didn't. It's likely you use RN apps every day and don't even notice because they're indistinguishable from native a…

Look at the new Discord app. It's significantly slower than previously ever since the switch to react native, and has significantly more hangups. React native works maybe fine if your target device is the highest end iPhone, but if your users are on Android One devices, it's not going to work nearly as well. That's aside from the layouting being obviously off compared to the native layout engines.

It works just fine if you actually profile and see what are the bottlenecks.

Re: Why did Airbnb dump React Native? (2021)

#110

Post by retor » Wed, Aug 17, 2022, 6:45 AM UTC

FlyingSnake wrote: post #104

retor wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never seen cross-platform UI that would work and/or look close enough to native. But wouldn't knowing that require that you investigated the tech choices of all the apps you are using? If not, there's a slight fallacy in that you only _know_ that the app is cross platform when you can see that it is. So then obviously all the apps you know is cross platform will look out of place, because that's how you know…

The discord user complaints rose exponentially after the switch to RN, and almost all users felt a perceivable difference in the quality of the new apps.

Hehe, I guess I was too late to party to experience the good ol' days.

It has a good rating in app store today. Better than Slack, even. And although there are probably many reasons for that, atleast RN hasn't killed the ratings.