ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS • Hacker News Board

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#11

Post by spicyj » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 12:12 AM UTC

sam-mueller wrote: post #7

I like the steady stream of innovative projects coming out of facebook as of late, but I can't help but feel like there's quite a bit of overlap in their initiatives. Just the fact that there's a footnote about how this isn't react-native illustrates my sentiments exactly.

You're right that there's some overlap:

> It may surprise you to hear that the Components library I’m describing is not React Native, but a separate project.

> Why the distinction? It’s simple: React Native hadn’t been invented yet when we rebuilt News Feed in Components. Everyone at Facebook is excited about the future of React Native, and it’s already been used to power both Mobile Ads Manager and Groups.

> (from http://www.objc.io/issue-22/facebook.html)

(I work on React.) We're going full steam ahead on React Native, but this is a slightly more mature project and we figured it made sense to release it for people who (for whatever reason) can't or aren't ready to adopt React Native yet. ComponentKit is also more mature and powers the most important part of the Facebook iOS app so it's virtually guaranteed to be rock-solid, whereas React Native has only been used in production for a few months.

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#12

Post by perishabledave » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 12:37 AM UTC

For those interested, Facebook had a good talk about this at Scale 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhXC4SKOGfQ

[edit] I just realized the video is linked on the front page of the frameworks website.

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#13

Post by ics » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 12:44 AM UTC

For all those focusing on the Objective-C++ aspect, I suggest watching the talk.

    - Faster (potentially? actually?)
    - Safer, because Objective-C gives too many chances to crash at runtime
    - They "can't wait" to port to Swift, so don't fret.

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#14

Post by bdarnell » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 1:33 AM UTC

Osmium wrote: post #9

Interesting justification of their choice of Objective-C++ here: http://componentkit.org/docs/why-cpp.html Anyone else have an opinion on this? Seems unusual for a iOS framework, especially going forward, but the reasons sound sensible enough.

I'm a fan of objective-c++ because it gives you some nice tools to cut down on verbosity (e.g. https://github.com/viewfinderco/viewfinder/blob/master/clien...) and c++ is the best language for a core library shared between iOS and Android. However, it does have drawbacks, especially the limited swift interoperability. Build times are also a headache, since many of the features apple has been adding to improve build performance do not work in obj-c++ mode.

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#15

Post by dirtyaura » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 1:34 AM UTC

Osmium wrote: post #9

Interesting justification of their choice of Objective-C++ here: http://componentkit.org/docs/why-cpp.html Anyone else have an opinion on this? Seems unusual for a iOS framework, especially going forward, but the reasons sound sensible enough.

Properly designed C++ library using templates and macros can lead to surprisingly terse application code - not your standard STL/Boost template syntax mess. I've seen it in one of our gaming frameworks, and in e.g. Google's C++ unit testing framework.

However developing the library code itself requires some serious C++ template fu and the abstraction leaks to the library user in the form of complex error messages.

Strategically used, like in this case, it certainly leads more succint and readable code than pure Objective-C alone.

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#16

Post by dirtyaura » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 1:40 AM UTC

sam-mueller wrote: post #7

I like the steady stream of innovative projects coming out of facebook as of late, but I can't help but feel like there's quite a bit of overlap in their initiatives. Just the fact that there's a footnote about how this isn't react-native illustrates my sentiments exactly.

it is natural and a good company strategy. Let several teams to produce competing designs that solve a similar problem with different tradeoffs. Eventually one will win inside the company.

For example Google has many many competing data backend projects build on top of Big Table, emphasing different requirements.

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#17

Post by prabhasp » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 1:59 AM UTC

spicyj wrote: post #11

sam-mueller wrote: post #7

I like the steady stream of innovative projects coming out of facebook as of late, but I can't help but feel like there's quite a bit of overlap in their initiatives. Just the fact that there's a footnote about how this isn't react-native illustrates my sentiments exactly.

You're right that there's some overlap: > It may surprise you to hear that the Components library I’m describing is not React Native, but a separate project. > Why the distinction? It’s simple: React Native hadn’t been invented yet when we rebuilt News Feed in Components. Everyone at Facebook is excited about the future of React Native, and it’s already been used to power both Mobile Ads Manager and Groups. > (from h…

Would be great to note this somewhere on the component kit site.

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#18

Post by ngoel36 » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 2:02 AM UTC

spicyj wrote: post #11

sam-mueller wrote: post #7

I like the steady stream of innovative projects coming out of facebook as of late, but I can't help but feel like there's quite a bit of overlap in their initiatives. Just the fact that there's a footnote about how this isn't react-native illustrates my sentiments exactly.

You're right that there's some overlap: > It may surprise you to hear that the Components library I’m describing is not React Native, but a separate project. > Why the distinction? It’s simple: React Native hadn’t been invented yet when we rebuilt News Feed in Components. Everyone at Facebook is excited about the future of React Native, and it’s already been used to power both Mobile Ads Manager and Groups. > (from h…

Any word on when React Native is being released? :)

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#19

Post by spicyj » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 2:08 AM UTC

ngoel36 wrote: post #18

spicyj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that there's some overlap: > It may surprise you to hear that the Components library I’m describing is not React Native, but a separate project. > Why the distinction? It’s simple: React Native hadn’t been invented yet when we rebuilt News Feed in Components. Everyone at Facebook is excited about the future of React Native, and it’s already been used to power both Mobile Ads Manager and Groups. > (from h…

Any word on when React Native is being released? :)

:) I think our current story is "by June 10".

https://twitter.com/Vjeux/status/578311560583520256

Re: ComponentKit by Facebook: A React-Inspired View Framework for iOS

#20

Post by tambourine_man » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 2:27 AM UTC

Osmium wrote: post #9

Interesting justification of their choice of Objective-C++ here: http://componentkit.org/docs/why-cpp.html Anyone else have an opinion on this? Seems unusual for a iOS framework, especially going forward, but the reasons sound sensible enough.

They're changing to Swift in the next version.

(He mentions it at the end of the video)