React Native: Initial Thoughts • Hacker News Board

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#31

Post by thomasfoster96 » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:25 PM UTC

nkozyra wrote: post #5

Kesty wrote: post #2

When "The Bad" list start with the single word Javascript, it loses a lot of credibility for any unbiased judgment.

I think this is because you're interpreting it as "Javascript is bad" instead of "Javascript is bad for this purpose." I think there are plenty of places where the latter is a totally logical statement that needs no real further explanation.

The article probably should have removed any ambiguity on the way it could have been interpreted. An explanation as to why javascript isn't a good language choice would have been even better.

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#32

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:26 PM UTC

lucian1900 wrote: post #25

Kesty wrote: post #2

When "The Bad" list start with the single word Javascript, it loses a lot of credibility for any unbiased judgment.

But JavaScript is a bad language, objectively. There's little debate on that subject. Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available.

> Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available.

Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion.

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#33

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:26 PM UTC

For me QML/C++ (or other C++ UIs) and Xamarin make much more sense for native mobile coders.

- Better native integration

- Integration with the SDK tooling

- Support of all three major mobile platforms

- Performance

As soon as I saw what React Native offers, it was meh for me.

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#34

Post by mrcwinn » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:26 PM UTC

lucian1900 wrote: post #25

Kesty wrote: post #2

When "The Bad" list start with the single word Javascript, it loses a lot of credibility for any unbiased judgment.

But JavaScript is a bad language, objectively. There's little debate on that subject. Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available.

There's nothing objective about that statement, since it depends on what you value. If you value having a language that is supported natively by every browser, I would argue JavaScript is - subjectively - quite fantastic!

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#35

Post by acdlite » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:29 PM UTC

> Flexbox. The authors missed the opportunity of offering a saner API and favored sticking to the official spec instead.

Flexbox is the saner API we've all be waiting for, in my opinion. I'm curious what the author's objections to it are. That's really my problem with the whole piece — statements like this are thrown out there without much justification or explanation.

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#36

Post by lazerwalker » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:31 PM UTC

tel wrote: post #21

Is there an FRP library in iOS? The author states that React "feels superior" than FRP, so I'm curious what the comparison was.

ReactiveCocoa is a fairly mature FRP library from GitHub.

It strikes me as a funny comparison. I agree that the react approach can feel like a better fit than FRP at the view layer, but it's not like there aren't positive reasons to use FRP/signal-based programming in your model layer or when wiring up your models to React views.

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#37

Post by rickyc091 » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:31 PM UTC

legacy2013 wrote: post #26

Why is Chrome Developer Tools meh? It's something people are familiar with and has a full debugging suite

"Chrome Dev Tools. Browsers are doing too much already."

I think he's trying to convey that the browser is getting too bloated and that there should perhaps be a native app to handle the debugging.

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#38

Post by thramp » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

acdlite wrote: post #35

> Flexbox. The authors missed the opportunity of offering a saner API and favored sticking to the official spec instead. Flexbox is the saner API we've all be waiting for, in my opinion. I'm curious what the author's objections to it are. That's really my problem with the whole piece — statements like this are thrown out there without much justification or explanation.

I'd much rather be writing apps using constraint-based layout, much like AutoLayout. It took me a while to grok it, but it's much simpler once you get it.

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#39

Post by smt88 » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:33 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #32

lucian1900 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But JavaScript is a bad language, objectively. There's little debate on that subject. Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available.

> Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available. Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion.

> Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion.

Popularity has nothing to do with quality. Node is popular because so many people knew JavaScript anyway. JavaScript is popular because it was the only widely-supported programming language for the browser (other than ActionScript, which is itself an ECMAScript flavor).

Re: React Native: Initial Thoughts

#40

Post by Cshelton » Mon, Mar 30, 2015, 1:34 PM UTC

jk5_ wrote: post #13

> Flexbox. The authors missed the opportunity of offering a saner API and favored sticking to the official spec instead. This is located in « The Meh » section. IMHO, it should be in the « The Good ». Using the official spec instead of reinventing the wheel is always a good move.

I think in either the first or second keynote back to when React native was announced they talked about their reasoning behind using flexbox. I think it's also 'the good'. They were able to use a web technology and make it work in react native just as if it's the browser, pretty impressive. If they had to come up with their own 'css' style layout api I would then have put it in 'the bad' myself.