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Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

shopify.engineering

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Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#461

Post by tcoff91 »

nfw2 wrote: post #416
tcdent wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But here's the thing, across operating systems the products should not be identical. When you get to the point that your have a significant enough number of users across multiple platforms, generalizing everything into a shared UX doesn't make sense; giving those classes of users the best experience requires embracing their platform. A simple example: Android has a system-wide convention for a `back` button. iOS has…

There is an implication here that the back button is a microcosm that represents the differences holistically but it's not. It's a small one-off exception that doesn't even affect the design choices made for the various apps. As I open up app over app on my Android (Audible, Spotify, ChatGPT, etc.), they all have clear in-app "back" functionality where needed. No apps I have installed rely on the Android back button…

Also, the back 'button' is mostly a thing of the past in Android and it's more similar to iOS now with the predictive back gesture.

The Android back button is legacy.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#462

Post by throwaway613746 »

blendergeek wrote: post #456

I first learned about the shopify app when I saw a purple "shop" checkout button. Next, I got an email saying that if I wanted to track my package I needed to download an app. No thank you. I don't want your app on my phone. I don't want to browse other stores in the shop app. I want to see my package and its status without enjoying a new "social shopping experience" or whatever. I now avoid buying things from anyone…

Never bought anything that used Shopify and never will. As a Canadian, Lutke is just a pathetic individual and I simply refuse to use anything he touches if I can avoid it.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#463

Post by collingreen »

atonse wrote: post #335
collingreen wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously! What a bonkers thing to claim. "I had codex use maestro so I assume it made Android work well and idiomatically". It's a fine project to do but clearly they put zero value on being familiar with the project's codebase/stack and ecosystem, which makes me feel fear in my heart when I imagine the first "production is down" page coming in. I already hated mobile because it's so much harder to maintain than web…

I answered elsewhere that I don’t personally use Android phones but we have people on our team that do. Which is why I don’t want to personally claim that it feels native. But yes we are having real Android users test it. So it’s quite the contrary. I care MORE what real users say. I can only guarantee that the app does things when I tap. So I’m not trusting the agent on UX, only on functionality. But whether it feel…

That's much better than my original, perhaps unfair, read. Thanks for the additional info.

I still would feel scared operating an established product off a newly changed stack the team isn't familiar with though.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#464

Post by collingreen »

dyauspitr wrote: post #314
dboreham wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably a sarcastic post, but this is actually going to be how things are done soon. I had a box that OOMed and needed to be rebooted every few weeks. It was a disaster recovery standby box so figuring out what was going on never rose to the top of my priority list. So I asked Claude to dig into it (proxying the commands it wanted to run through me) and in an hour it had diagnosed the problem, fixed it, and taught…

Not sarcastic. I have a moderately successful app and I haven’t once looked at the code (though I am capable, so far atleast). The only time I open Xcode is if I have to modify signing certificates. I did set up a slack workflow with a “fix it” button that basically tells Codex to fix the issue, run comprehensive tests, manually UI test for that particular issue with computer use and then deploy it.

Equal parts very cool and very scary to me

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#465

Post by throwaway613746 »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #384
canto wrote: post #351

So, instead of paying humans twice for the same thing, Shopify will pay corporations to burn the planet a little bit more, waste water and energy - to build the same thing twice. Just because. There's no tech reason to do it. "LLMS are better now". There's no low level optimisations, no blockers, no app shortcomings, it's a shopping app for Christ sake. Instead of optimising, creating more with less, they will create…

> Just because. There's no tech reason to do it. They made a separate article on why, which they linked to. Performance is significantly better. The native Android app launches twice as fast for example

[dead]

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#466

Post by aprilthird2021 »

nightpool wrote: post #359
fnthawar2 wrote: post #2

We don’t hold on to a decision just because it was successful at the time. When a core assumption changes, we’re willing to go back and ask whether it’s still the right call. LLMs changed one of the core assumptions behind our 2020 decision, so we reevaluated our mobile stack from first principles. What we found led us back to native.

Thanks Mustafa! This was a great article—I'm curious, did you consider the non-technical / organizational costs in keeping the two codebases in sync as a separate factor? Do you foresee more organizational overhead as part of this decision? How are you planning to manage that? E.g. small implementation difference between the iOS and Android app increasing the support burden or bug burden and causing duplicated team e…

This is not the author. It's very likely Farhan Thawar, head of eng at Shopify

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#467

Post by yoz-y »

joefourier wrote: post #357
pessimizer wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always the preference of people defending bad decisions to compare them to doing nothing. What you're seeing is people actually making that case instead of forcing it. They're saying that if the app wouldn't exist without this bad thing, then it is appropriate to compare using the bad thing to doing nothing. You just seem to be demanding that people not mention other ways to do things, or you'll get angry.

The app not existing would unironically be better in so many instances, though. The web version doesn’t take up 1GB of disk space, install persistent services, send you push notifications by default, and it’s trivial to block ads in comparison. I’d be very happy if companies didn’t artificially degrade their web version to force installation of an “app” that’s effectively a web browser in disguise.

Yup. Now we have a choice of either using a terrible website with popovers and cookie bars (never remembering the choices) or apps that have insane onboarding, and bombard you with ads through notifications, with zero benefit.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#468

Post by bluGill »

nfw2 wrote: post #458
sokoloff wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if I’m an iOS user and used to that and you give me a conventional Android app UX, I’m going to feel that as jank. Same as if I’m an Android user and you give me the conventional iOS experience. It’s like if I gave a swing or Gtk+ or Xwindows app experience on Windows 11 or MacOS. It would be usable, but feel conspicuously sub-standard.

What specifically are the ux differences?

I don't know iOS so I can't say, but a good UX does depend in part on platform expectations and every system historically been different. The compromises mean the each have good reason for what they do (sometimes anyway), but switching is hard.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#469

Post by sghiassy »

Waterluvian wrote: post #28

If you put every company that needs/has an app on a spectrum, there is a line somewhere that roughly divides them into two groups: where Electron/React Native/etc. makes sense or not. It's just a normal engineering decision: solving problems given limited resources. Companies have different problems and different resources. I think people in the tech community have probably also noticed that it's rather popular to ha…

Well written and good perspective

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#470

Post by Capricorn2481 »

hylaride wrote: post #161
kelnos wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think people in the tech community have probably also noticed that it's rather popular to have an absolute opinion on the goodness or badness of these tools. I don't think that's necessarily true. Nuance is a thing. These tools are bad, objectively! They give inferior user experiences, and waste resources (ever more important now with RAM prices what they are). But that doesn't mean I can't understand or even agr…

Nuance is always a thing. Native apps are faster and better most of the time. Electron and React Native wouldn't annoy me so much if they were used with small apps where it's not worth over-optimizing. However, it's now the default for Multiplatform apps that are used constantly, including IDEs, chat apps, etc. They gobble up memory and cpu cycles and are constantly getting updates due to the shitshow that is the jav…

I would rather have the opposite? I don't want 10 people making small apps that use Electron. I would rather that be used for bigger apps where the overhead is negligible.
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