All I can is, as a RN Developer, I love it. I love being able to use 1 language for both app platforms. The RN community is amazing. Many of the comments here talking about outdated packages were likely burned by RNs early days when it was Migrating an existing native stack to RN might not be the answer, but anyone looking to get their startup off the group should consider RN. Its fast development and converting a React web dev is super easy.
Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
161–170 of 588 posts
Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
#162And in a couple of years, "Why we are moving away from React Native at Shopify". Not slamming React Native but the sensationalistic headline. Anyone with a bit of experience in software should know better than making this kind of silly proclamation about the future of your software stack.
I have not seen one good app for android that has been written in react native. Can anyone show me one that doesn't suck in performance?
My app is incredibly simple but its performance is good. HopeWaves on the play store.
Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
#163Shopify is right to use React Native. I build an app with React Native Web and we produce Android/iOS/web from the same code base with 3 developers. No, it's not perfect. Yes, JS can be awkward and confusing. Yes, a truly native app built by expert platform-specific developers would be better. But I'm able to ship this product with less than half the team size I would need for native development. JavaScript developer…
Pretty similar experience here. The rate at which we've been able to get features out the door has doubled since we switch from native.
Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Flutter and React-Native are different directions, I think. For higly customized UIs (think Ableton Live, Photoshop, Excel, etc.), I'd say use Flutter, because of the non-native rendering, it will look the same everywhere. Otherwise use React-Native.
In my experience Flutter is not any less productive than RN is, I'd prefer the former in every case now.
Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. The common denominator isn't as low as one might expect. I'd guess at least 90% of all apps could be easily done with React-Native.
Sure. But what if the entire world doesn’t want to learn JavaScript? What if you don’t already know HTML, CSS, and JS? RN makes ZERO sense at that point. As a C developer, man, Flutter looks pretty damn logical!
Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
#166Shopify is right to use React Native. I build an app with React Native Web and we produce Android/iOS/web from the same code base with 3 developers. No, it's not perfect. Yes, JS can be awkward and confusing. Yes, a truly native app built by expert platform-specific developers would be better. But I'm able to ship this product with less than half the team size I would need for native development. JavaScript developer…
> JS can be awkward and confusing. > JavaScript developers are cheap to hire There’s your problem. Go hire JS devs that know what they’re doing.
My point is that it's not a problem. I can take someone fresh out of bootcamp with a basic understanding of react components and css and get them churning out code that works on 3 platforms.
Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
#167I don't understand why so many large companies use platform abstractions. At a certain size you're big enough to have an iOS team that develops natively in Swift/ObjC and an Android team developing natively in Kotlin or Java. Developing directly for the platform, with expertise in that platform, is a proven long term bet. Screwing around with platform abstractions seems much riskier. The situation is a lot different…
> I don't understand why so many large companies use platform abstractions. At a certain size you're big enough to have an iOS team that develops natively in Swift/ObjC and an Android team developing natively in Kotlin or Java.
Because whoever made the decision to move to an abstraction gets to highlight "eliminated redundancies and saved the company $XMM/year" in their next performance review/resume.
Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have not seen one good app for android that has been written in react native. Can anyone show me one that doesn't suck in performance?
Instagram.
Instagram has very limited parts of the application written in RN, like 'Edit Profile'. [1]
The vast majority of the app is implemented natively.
[1] https://instagram-engineering.com/react-native-at-instagram-...
Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be pants-on-head insane for a company like Shopify to go all-in on Flutter. Is Flutter going to be around 10 years from now? Can Shopify support Flutter on their own if nobody else is using it 10 years from now? I don't mean that technically the license would allow them to, but can they in practice field the manpower and skills to do so across all the platforms they need.
I don’t know much about RN or Flutter; but why is it “insane” that flutter cant exist in 10 years but RN will still be king? Why can’t RN die within 10 years? Because it’s been around since 2013 vs 2017? Because you like one more than the other? I have concerns about Google’s commitment to Dart/Flutter, but I’m not sure one scenario is pants on head insane and the other just fact.
React Native could very well fall out of favor in the next 10 years, but the amount of companies using it today means there is a sufficient base to share the maintenance burden with, of which Shopify could potentially carry a large amount because of the significant overlap with the rest of their tech stack. If Google becomes disinterested in Dart, could Shopify step up and maintain it? Seems unlikely, and why on Earth would they want to, it's nowhere close to the rest of their competencies?
If for one technology you can extrapolate from today out to the next several years at least, and the other's path is effectively entirely opaque and at the whim of another party, it's a company-killer level risk to bet on the latter. Put it this way, if Google drops Dart/Flutter tomorrow, Google will be just fine as they have very little skin in the game so to speak. Technical reasons one way or another are completely overshadowed by the business risks, as the landscape is today (which will change over the years, but Shopify is making their decision today).
Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can't be overstated how many apps are absolutely dependent on working push notifications (all chat for example) and can't be replicated as websites. And that's not yet implemented for iOS so we're all at Apple's mercy until it is, which may never be.
I can’t stand push notifications, I disable them all except for a couple (like signal). They are usually only part of the app to manipulate you into using it constantly
several applications require them to be useful. Security events from my home cameras, messages from clients, timers, email
Anytime I'm using a peice of small business software I'd probably like it to be able to give me notifications