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Introducing React Native [video]

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Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#141

Post by mwaveguy »

jordwalke wrote: post #83

I'm Jordan and I'm on the React (and React Native) team. There's been some great questions and insight on this thread. React Native offers a ton of benefits around productivity (and ability to use React of course), but since there are many questions about performance, I thought I'd share some of my own personal perspective on the matter. React Native is very different than other approaches because: 1. We're not promi…

Is the JavaScript 'react host' implemented in native (Objective-C/Swift/Java) language and interpreted during runtime? How are the calls between threads managed - especially wrt marshaling of data structures?

Flux store now originates from native source - do we now have a 'native -> JS interpreter -> native' double transition on every flow?

If the JavaScript is interpreted, would hot-loading mid-flight to change behavior of the native app be possible?

Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#142

Post by somethingreen »

When I tried similar solutions (running business logic in JS and abstracting native platform specific UI implementations), one of main problems I encountered was that JS was running in a clean VM while most libraries rely in some way on either browser or node.js environment. I wonder if React Native addresses this.

Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#143

Post by sheraz »

mattdeboard wrote: post #134
sheraz wrote: post #120

Wow. I've been struggling to teach myself objective-c, never getting beyond the simple tutorials. So I'm happy to try this out. I currently have an MVP in ionic framework and would love to port this over to react. Though I should say that Ionic is amazing in its own right. Also, I tend to agree with some of the comments in this thread -- regular Joe user can't really tell the difference. Ionic on an iPhone looks damn…

Dude you should try Swift. Much easier.

I would, but I have not upgraded my macbook to mavericks yet. :-/

Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#144

Post by [deleted] »

cromwellian wrote: post #95

We just demoed something similar at the GWTCreate conference, an Angular-like library called Singular ( http://daniel-kurka.de/talks/gwtcreate15/singular.pdf ) It differs in that it uses the same techniques as Google Inbox to run native code. We cross compile to Objective-C with j2objc, and cross-compile to JS via GWT, the data binding, controllers, are shared code on all platforms that run full speed native, while t…

[deleted]

Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#145

Post by Glide »

marknutter wrote: post #118
CmonDev wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate the users. They might use different words, but their comments and ratings will tell the story of web/hybrid suffering. Unfortunately web is not meant for apps, but for interactive documents.

Don't overestimate users either. It's very easy to build for other geeks rather than the General public. Netflix apps are almost all built using web technologies and it doesn't seem to bother most users. I think there's been an overemphasis on pixel perfect UI and on UX in general but people don't want nice UI's, they want useful apps.

For Netflix, the interface can only get in the way. People are there to watch movies and that's basically it. You can't "nail" the interface like you can with applications you interact with more.

It feels like there is a bias against web based apps in general because I usually have a bad experience with them or stop using an application when I get annoyed with the user experience. I'm sure it's possible to create a good user experience with a non-native toolkit. It just seems like the people that really give a damn go native in order to offer a better experience.

Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#146

Post by jbigelow76 »

CmonDev wrote: post #98
jbigelow76 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting. Microsoft allows you to build fully native (not webview wrappers) apps using WinJS, and they have shown that React (along with Angular) can be used to build those apps [1]. I wonder if Microsoft will put resources into bridging the gap between React Native and Windows 10. As a long time web oriented .NET developer wanting to pick up mobile who has been wondering whether to go Cordova or dive in full…

Honest question: you don't mind switching from a modern well-designed static language to legacy hastily-designed dynamic language?

I do a lot of Javascript for the front end SPA of our WCF based api, so I'm content with both js and C#, I try not to get too hung up on either language's respective baggage.

Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#147

Post by TheCoelacanth »

donw wrote: post #51
themgt wrote: post #48

Well, my money is on this (concept if not implementation) being the future of client-side development. Absent horrific performance/robustness problems, which seem pretty unlikely from this team, this is sounding like the droids we were looking for, the holy grail ring to unite us all, web and native. And did even Steve Yegge ever see this next big language coming?

Having spent the past six or so months working with React and Flux, I sure hope so. For the first time in my technical career, I've actually enjoyed working in Javascript. The real power of React isn't just the virtual DOM -- it's being able to leverage Flux and an immutable, single-source-of-truth app state. Pretty much every time I turn around to build something, this combination has made what used to be an exercis…

To some extent the virtual DOM is what enables that, because it allows that style of programming while still having good performance.

Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#148

Post by pluma »

somethingreen wrote: post #142

When I tried similar solutions (running business logic in JS and abstracting native platform specific UI implementations), one of main problems I encountered was that JS was running in a clean VM while most libraries rely in some way on either browser or node.js environment. I wonder if React Native addresses this.

React is pretty much environment agnostic. It supports server-side rendering because it works without a DOM.

Based on how they are specifically talking about not sharing code but sharing knowledge (i.e. same API, different components), I'd assume the environment-specific stuff is implemented by the actual primitive components (View, etc, the equivalent of div, etc, in the browser).

They make it very clear that you won't be taking your web app and just magically have it work natively. You'd just write your native app using React, too.

Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#149

Post by pluma »

iLoch wrote: post #79

I'm part of the group that thought "what the hell?" when I first saw the React syntax - but seeing this has completely changed my mind and I'm really looking forward to picking up React as soon as possible. If this delivers on its promises (no reason to assume it won't, seeing as it's already being used in large apps) then it's going to change the mobile development landscape. It sounded like they may even be hinting…

I think everybody reacts quite viscerally to JSX the first time they see it. Mostly because it looks like something that has been tried in the past and didn't work then. It's actually not like that at all, though. It's decidedly not a template language but just an alternative syntax for JS.

It stopped me from paying attention to React until someone suggested it might be the best fit for a problem I had and I followed the introduction's plea to "give it five minutes".

Turns out it's exactly what I wanted and needed. It comes with a lot of (optional but related) other good ideas like immutability and unidirectional data flow. I can't wait to see how React Native works out.

Re: Introducing React Native [video]

#150

Post by leeoniya »

thewarrior wrote: post #87
leeoniya wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with gpu-accelerated css transitions, requestAnimationFrame, virtual dom and web workers, the experience can be damn close. he makes it seem like "no comparison", this is provably false at least for the apps he demoed. for games, native is still necessary. what react offers beyond performance though, is definitely awesome. imo, the talk comes off a bit like a sales pitch at a pep rally.

Do you have any examples of apps that come damn close ?

not full apps, but some demos off the top of my head:

http://tympanus.net/Development/SidebarTransitions/

http://tympanus.net/Tutorials/CaptionHoverEffects/index.html

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